I bought this for a Father's Day present, as my dad makes a lot of homemade ice cream and I thought he might enjoy waffle bowls to go with them... I'm giving the bowl maker 4 stars because I really like the idea of homemade waffle bowls, but I'm honestly tempted to give it 3.We first tried to make the chocolate cookie bowl recipe that comes in the booklet, which was an absolute disaster (although the batter was delicious). No matter how short or long I cooked them, or the amount of greasing done, they were impossible to get out of the cups. Would just break into pieces (I tried at least a dozen times) and generally made a big mess. I'm convinced that particular recipe doesn't work and I'd advise to skip the hassle I went through and use a different one...After going back to Amazon and reading some of the reviews we decided to try the "simpler" recipe that someone posted in their review. They did actually work and I was able to get them out of the cups (although no matter how much I greased the bowl maker they always stuck to the top and had to be carefully removed). They tasted good and were very cute. Even with the recipe that works, it was near impossible to get the right amount of batter into the cups. No matter what I did, one side of the cups would always have more batter in it than the other, so either the maker is crooked or my dad's house is... It is also very messy, I followed the directions using vegetable shortening/oil and the oil drips all over the counter while baking. Like other reviews mentioned, it doesn't cook very evenly. One side cooked much faster than the other. I also wish that the bowls were bigger, as they are pretty tiny. But, at the end of the day it did make homemade waffle bowls and they did taste good with my dad's chocolate ice cream.