Dippin' Dots Frozen Dot Maker: Does It Really Work? Let's Find Out!

That is kind of oddly satisfying seeing them fill up like that

When my kids were little they used to love Dippin' Dots. In fact, they still love them now in their 20s. And who am I kidding? I like them too. So when I saw this Dippin' Dots maker on Amazon

I knew I had to try it out and see if it actually works. Now the reviews are not very good for this

one but hopefully my experience can be better than average. So let's see how it works in today's video

Let's flashback to my unboxing last night and then get started. And we've got some instructions which might be important

Oh, very interesting looking. That's not what I expected to see in there but that's kind of

kind of cool looking, I think. So these I believe are the dispensers and these are the, the cups are pretty small

I'm not quite sure what that is but we'll figure it out. And we got some small spoons too

How about box number two now? These must be the six trays

I believe these are the pop pens. Let's open one of these up. Whoops. Something just popped out of there

There's this little piece here, and it looks like a pen, so I'm not really sure what these do yet

I just tore the instructions. I just tore them. But I'm going to read these over

and there's some coupons on here, which shockingly have not even expired yet

So that's kind of nice. Now if we take a look at everything we got here, I paid $30.23 for this, which doesn't seem too bad

It currently has kind of an unimpressive 3.7 star rating on Amazon

which isn't very good. And that's about among over 500 ratings. The claims for this are that it magically can make frozen dots

at home using any soda, juice, or milk. Make dots in two hours

The set includes one maker right here, six trays, four bowls and spoons

the two pop pens, and the instructions, which I just tore. Now the pros on Amazon, there's not a lot of positive comments

and the ones that are positive mostly just say, loved it. They don't want to give any details. People that didn't like it gave a lot of details

Quite a few people on Amazon said that the end result didn't look like Dippin' Dots. A lot of people were surprised that it doesn't include

any kind of flavors or mixes whatsoever. There's a couple recipes that aren't very specific

and that's it. The recipes right here just give ingredients. They don't give amounts, anything, nothing

It just says two ingredients. That's not very helpful. There were other complaints that it's hard to use

and several people said that all you got out of this was a big block of dots stuck together

I'm going to wash this up, read the instructions, and then get started. So the first thing you have to do is fill these dispensers

Now we have six trays and we have three dispensers, but we also have these pens that can fill them as well

Now as far as what recipes to use, they're not real clear. They have this which shows some kind of basic recipes

No amounts of anything given, just basically mixing juice and soda together. So that's all I'm going to do is have different concoctions of juice and soda and see how it goes

So for the first container I'm going to fill, this one's kind of a kind of mango flavored

so I'm going to put some mango banana juice in here and see how that goes

So I'll fill it about halfway up. Placing the cap on, snapping it in place

It didn't really snap, but it kind of slid into place. Put it in the base and slide it to lock in place

And we are, it's leaking. It is already leaking. Hold on a second. Hold the phone here

We got a leak already. Seems like the leaking stopped, so let's put it back in here. All right, for the middle one

I'm going to go with some pineapple juice. Now, they say not to use too pulpy of juice

but they're not real clear about how pulpy is too pulpy. So, I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens

This does not look like overly pulpy pineapple juice. Make sure it's not leaking. It is not leaking

They also say you can use soda, so I'm just going to try that and see how that goes. Putting the cap on. The cap doesn't really lock

It just kind of slides until it stops sliding. So I don feel totally confident in it but let see Alright so far so good Oh something happening We got leakage We got leakage The soda just keeps leaking

Maybe the pressure from the carbonation, I don't know. They're not really very clear on the instructions

about using soda on here. They say you can use it, but they're not clear. I'm just going to forget the soda on this one

It's not going to work too well. Alright, I'm going to forget the soda in there. I'm going to try something else

The carbonation does not like that dispenser very much. This one's sure better. I got a Starbucks drink here

Let's see if that works. I thought maybe having some Starbucks flavored Dippin' Dots might be pretty good

Alright, the Starbucks drink is not leaking. All three dispensers are filled

Now, you can also fill it with these pins, which I will get to a little bit later, but let's try dispensing some and see how it goes

Alright, after filling the dispensers, next up you're supposed to put one of these trays in the base. Now, the tray is just a mold

It reminds me just a little bit of the Ice Genie I did a few years ago. And the Ice Genie was not very good, by the way

But I digress. So there's a hole here in the base and there's a cup that you're supposed to fill with and that goes in the hole itself

That's the plan at least. So we're placing it in the base. Placing the cup in the tray

I should point out there's also a fill line on this cup. There's a fill line right at the top there

so I got to make sure I don't go over that. Alright, here we go. I think I'm ready to fill. Here we go. Mango filling. Take one

Oh, it's filling. It's filling. And right to the fill line. Now what we're supposed to do is pull this lever out and then fill the mold

Oh, and there it goes. I can see the mold being filled right now. Very cool

Removing the cup here. There's a little bit pool on the top, not a big deal. They say that could happen

You're supposed to just use a towel and dab that off. Alright, so this tray is done

Let's get ready for the freezer. We've got five more trays to fill. Let's keep going. Speed things up a little bit

Tray number two. We're going with the pineapple. All right. First up, I'm going to dispense the pineapple into the cup

And it's not dispensing. Why is it not dispensing? It's not, it's not dispensing

Dispensing the pineapple. Oh, there it goes. There it goes. And we're to the fill line. There we go

Now for the cup, press the lever in. And you can see how it's filling up the mold

That's pretty cool. I like the way that looks. Very oddly satisfying

Looks like they're not all full. I need to add a little bit more

Alright, that seemed to do it. A little bit extra which is totally fine. Just a dab will do you here. Alright, so number two out of six is done

Let's go with number three. This is what I'm curious about. Can I make delicious coffee flavored Dippin' Dots? That sounds good

Will it work? We shall see. Dispensing the Starbucks drink. Alright, so far so good. It's coming out a nice good clip

It's not so fast you can't stop it in time, so it's actually dispenses at a nice pace

Now press the lever in. That is kind of oddly satisfying seeing them fill up like that

And it looks like this one's going to fill up all of them, I think. All right, for number four, I'm going to take the mango number one

I'm going to add some more stuff to it. So I'm going to take this off. I still got quite a bit of mango banana in there

but I'm going to add even more to it. I've got some oat milk here. Trying to make a little bit more milky

Maybe a little bit of a dash of lime juice. What would that do? We shall see. That made a pretty big dash

Alright the cap is on. Is it leaking? Doesn't look like it. Maybe I'll shake that up a little bit

And of course now it's dripping. Now it's dripping. But we're going to go anyways. Cup is done filling. Now let's fill the mold

There it goes once again. This one, I'll be interested to see how this one tastes

I don know how it going to taste We shall see Taking the cup out Alright number four We got two more to go This one originally had pineapple juice in it I just going to add a little bit of everything Let see We going to add some lime juice

Going to add some mango banana. And we'll see how that goes

Cap goes back on. That kind of smells funny but we shall see. Placing the cup in there

Dispensing. There it goes. Alright, now dispensing with the lever into the mold

And there it goes. That seemed like the perfect amount. Every single one of them is filled up

So that did well. Alright, this is mold number five. Now I have the last, the last one here

which you don't even really need this base for. You can just do it anywhere, because we're going to try one of these pens here

Now the way the pen is supposed to work is you're supposed to cap it off before you fill it

I did measure it out all the way to the top is the fill line

of the, of this cup. So you want to go all the way to the top. Then you place the cap on it and dispense it that way

Since my Coke didn't work before, I'm going to try it in here. I'm determined to have some Coke Dippin' Dots

All right. Now we add the cap to it, which is a little bit awkward with just one hand

I feel like I need two hands for that. And the other hand's holding this in. Let me try it. Oh, I'm spilling. I'm spilling

All right. The cap is on, even though my fingers are covered in Coke, but the cap is on

Now what we're supposed to do is just stick that pin right in there and dispense it. Now what they say to do is to press the cap

and then take it out so it fills the air. But to me, I think you just take the cap off

and it should fill. That seems a lot easier than pressing that like a pin

over and over again. See, it's filling. Even easier than that. I don't even think you need to do it that way

Just stick it in there and fill it until it's full. The caps on these pens, that's a big flaw right there

This could have, got to be a better way. Got to be a better way. So now I have to just wipe off the excess

All right. I've got all six trays here. We're going in the freezer, they say, two to three hours

I'm going to give it at least three hours, maybe a little longer than that. We'll come back then, crack them open, and see how they turned out

All right. It's been four hours, they say two to three, so they should be nice and frozen by now

Now according to the instructions, the next thing you're supposed to do is remove it from the freezer and run it underwater for 5 to 10 seconds

So let's do that. Time for the moment of truth here. This is the mango

This is the first one I did. Now the next thing we're supposed to do is bend the tray back and forth one or two times

to break up the dots. It doesn't sound like anything's breaking. When you do this with an ice cube tray, you usually hear something

Here, I don't really hear anything. Nothing seems to be breaking up. I honestly don't have a very good feeling about this

But we'll see. Hopefully I'm wrong. Let's check it out. Let's see. Something's in there

We got something. and they're kind of stuck. That's what we got but they haven't really come apart yet

I'll use one of their spoons here. Oh, I'm making a mess. I wouldn't say they're Dippin' Dots but they're Dot-like

Alright, there we go. What do you guys think? I mean they're, they're circular frozen treats

I guess in that respect they're like Dippin' Dots. Let's taste it and see what we got here

I mean it's pretty good. It's a nice frozen treat. It's not a Dippin' Dot, but it's a frozen treat

This is a little bit difficult to get off there, but let me try the next one and see how it goes. I believe this was the pineapple

I just pulled that one out of there, ran out of the sink for about 10 seconds

Let's see what we got. It looks a lot like the first one. It looks a lot like the first one. They don't really come out that easily

but they are coming out. Oh, that's not too bad. I feel like the pineapple actually came out better

than the mango did. Not bad looking really. That's the mango banana

and over here is the pineapple. The pineapple can look better It just looks more like dots They don the Nippin Dots are more like ice cream This is just like a frozen treat but it kind of looks like them a little bit Now let me taste this one now

Pretty good frozen treat, but still not a Dippin' Dot. All right. So this is the one I'm most curious about

This is the Starbucks coffee drink. This one's milk-based. If anything's like Dippin' Dots, this should be it

Let's see. I ran it underwater for 10 seconds. Let's try to bend it around

And I never hear any kind of crackling like you'd expect from like an ice cube tray. It's not happening here

But the bending is kind of working a little bit, I guess. Almost the entire batch is on one side

Getting them out of here is a bit of a bit of work

Sometimes they just don't want to come out at all. Good enough. Good enough. Let me break these up

This is my Starbucks coffee one. Looks pretty good. I have high hopes for this one

Don't let me down, Dippin' Dots Maker. Here we go. It's pretty good. Not bad

Before I go any further, let me pull out some real Dippin' Dots and show you what those look like

Alright, here's how Dippin' Dots come these days in a package most of the time. But let's take a look at these compared to what I've made

Real Dippin' Dots, fake Dippin' Dots. They are not the same thing

These are real Dippin' Dots. These are real not Dippin' Dots. Oh, totally different texture

Totally different texture. It's not terrible, but it's not the same thing

The fourth one I did was kind of my concoction here. Let's check this one out. I ran under hot water

I'll do some bending here, which isn't very... I don't think this really does much, but I'm trying anyways

Oh, this one's pulling apart pretty easily. Look at this. I mean, it's separated pretty well

Will it go in there pretty well? Let's see. Yeah, not bad

Look at that. That actually came out better than any of the others. I don't remember what this concoction was. But that's what we got. Let's taste it

Kind of a pineapple mango flavor. Not bad. Is it like Dippin' Dots

Nope. Number five. I don't even remember what this one was. But let's see what it tastes like

If you were doing this with kids, I think the kids might struggle with that aspect of it opening up

It takes a little bit of, a little bit of prying them apart. It seems like depending on the consistency of the liquid you put in there is how easy it is to come out

This one is not coming out at all. So I end up having to kind of scrape it which ruins the dot effect

Oh well. I'm going to give up on this one. This one's just like stuck in there. They barely look like dots because I had to scrape them. Let me taste it

Tastes pretty good. And finally this one I'm kind of curious about. That's the Coke Dippin' Dots

Let's see what we got here. Well this one actually made a cracking kind of sound unlike the others

Will it come apart easily or will it be difficult? It's coming apart pretty easily I think

Or not. Well, I spoke too soon. Oh, that doesn't, that's just a big mess

Look at that. That barely, there's barely even dots here. Barely even dots

You're better off just putting some Coke and some ice cream trays and calling it good. This is already looks like slush

I mean it tastes pretty good but is that Dippin' Dots? I don't think so. Dippin' Dots, fake Dippin' Dots. What do you guys think

I mean, nice try, but you know, not quite. All right. So, let's look at the pros and cons of this

The pros would be that it's well made, it's kind of fun, and it does produce a frozen treat

The bad news? These ain't Dippin' Dots. I don't think they should call it Dippin' Dots though

because people are going to see the word Dippin' Dots and they're going to think of this, and what they're going to get is this

Not the same thing. Although this is pretty good. It's not this. If they called it something generic like Frozen Balm Treat Maker

they'd be better off than people trying to compare it to this, which is not. But I'm glad I tried. It was fun to use

If you've tried something like this, tell me what you think in the comments below. I appreciate you watching, and I'll see you next time