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Home Lifestyle The best ice-cream makers in the UK for gelato, soft serve and sorbets – tested | Ice-cream and sorbet

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The best ice-cream makers in the UK for gelato, soft serve and sorbets – tested | Ice-cream and sorbet

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The best ice-cream makers in the UK for gelato, soft serve and sorbets – tested | Ice-cream and sorbet

I love a scoop or two of the good stuff, even more so when the mercury hits 30C and ice-cream starts feeling less like an indulgence and more like an essential survival tool. This is why owning an ice-cream maker has always made sense to me. I’ve been using the original Ninja Creami for years now, but before that I was spending a small fortune on gelato, fruity sorbets, frozen yoghurt and other such desserts from the frozen aisle.

Some might argue that the best ice-cream makers are a luxury, but if you’re a true dessert devotee, I believe they can earn their keep in no time. A tub of Häagen-Dazs will set you back almost £6 nowadays, which is an expensive habit if you’re getting through a pot a week during the hottest months of the year.

With your own ice-cream machine, you get an endless supply whenever you fancy it, and you can get creative with flavours, tweaking as you go. It’s also ideal if you have allergies or follow a dairy-free diet, as good allergy-friendly ice-cream can be harder to find. Better still, making your own means you can skip the emulsifiers, artificial flavours, sweeteners and stabilisers found in many shop-bought tubs, so it’s a great option if you’re trying to move away from ultra-processed foods.

But with so many options available, where do you start? I’ve taken one for the team – and no doubt my waistline – to test the best ice-cream makers available right now, from trendy soft-serve ice-cream machines to professional-style compressor models.

At a glance

Why you should trust me

I’ve spent almost a decade researching, testing and reviewing kitchen appliances, which means I’m aware of the very best (and worst) the industry has to offer. I’ve seen appliance trends come and go, and I know what people actually want in their kitchens.

I’m also an avid home cook and dinner party host. When I’m not in my kitchen testing appliances on the clock, I’m still there whipping up feasts for my willing partner and friends.

How I tested

Whipping up a storm … each ice-cream maker was assessed on everything from texture to ease of cleaning. Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

The research for this article meant making – and eating – a lot of ice-cream and sorbet (someone had to do it). I put 13 machines through their paces with three recipes on each: Felicity Cloake’s perfect vanilla ice-cream, her lemon sorbet and, where the machine allowed, a more basic throw-it-all-in recipe for strawberry ice-cream made with milk, cream, sugar and macerated strawberries. All the machines also came with their own recipe booklet or app, so I also tested one of these, usually a standard vanilla recipe with double cream.

Testing a variety of recipes gave me a sense of how capable and versatile each machine really was, helping to decide whether it’s worthy of taking up precious space on your worktop.

As well as making lots of ice-cream, I put on my technical hat to measure churning speeds, record noise levels using a decibel meter, and assess ice crystal formation, as well as the general taste and texture of the results after some time in the freezer.

As a certified chore hater, I found that ease of assembly and cleaning were just as important. Waiting 24 hours to taste the results of your prep is one thing; spending another hour to disassemble and scrub clean the machine afterwards is quite another.

All ice-cream makers sourced for this article will be donated to charity.

The best ice-cream makers for your home

Cool contenders … the ice-cream machines that went head-to-head in the tests. Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Caso IceCreamer compressor ice-cream maker — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Cuisinart Solo Scoops — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Ninja Creami NC300 — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Nutribullet Chill — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

GreenPan Frost ice-cream maker and slushie machine — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

The best of the rest

Side by side … the Lakeland (right) excelled at gelato-style recipes, while the Cuisinart Frost Fusion (left) took more trial and error. Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Lakeland compressor ice-cream maker — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Cuisinart Frost Fusion soft-serve ice-cream maker and drinks machine — Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

What you need to know

Worth the wait: freeze-first machines, such as the Cuisinart Solo Scoops, need planning ahead, but can produce excellent ice-cream and sorbet. Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

Freeze first vs compressor ice-cream makers – what’s the difference?

There was a time when you could only get two types of ice-cream maker. The first was a classic freeze-first model, where you needed to prefreeze the coolant-filled bowl for at least 24 hours before starting. The other was a compressor model, using a built-in refrigeration unit that freezes the chilled mixture as it churns, taking up to 60 minutes.

While these two options are still popular today, others have joined the ice-cream-making party. These include soft-serve and slushie machines, which also use a compressor but churn faster to produce softer, Mr Whippy-style ice-cream. Another type is often described as a “frozen dessert maker” (such as the Ninja Creami, Nutribullet Chill, and so on). These machines require you to combine ingredients and prefreeze in a tub, after which the mix is processed from frozen with a sharp blade.

These newer models are more flexible in terms of what you can make, but they require more experimentation to get the best results and are often trickier to clean.

How to make ice-cream in an ice-cream maker

I quickly learned during testing that many of the recipes in the ice-cream makers’ accompanying booklets aren’t very good. Most suggest using double cream exclusively, which doesn’t freeze that well and often creates a greasy, grainy texture when it does.

My advice is to stick to tried-and-tested recipes that use stable, lower-fat ingredients. While you need some fat to achieve that delicious, creamy feel, if it’s too much, it goes the other way.

Compressor machines

Keep your cool: compressor models often mean simply adding the chilled mixture and letting the machine do the rest. Photograph: Danielle Amato/The Guardian

You’ll get great results with most recipes – I found sorbet and custard-based ice-creams worked best. Simply chill the mixture, then throw it in. In general, mix-ins aren’t advised while freezing and should instead be added at the end using the “churn-only” setting, which simply spins the paddle.

Freeze-first machines
These require you to freeze the included bowl for at least 24 hours before making ice-cream (I found 36 hours works best as a minimum), as well as chill your mixture in the fridge separately. With this done, you can churn as usual – but, like compressor models, leave mix-ins until the end.

Soft-serve and slushie machines
These can be a bit trickier to master, especially if the recipes included with your machine aren’t quite right. For best results, stick to stable, medium-fat recipes (eg not just double cream); otherwise you risk making butter. You can use a chilled mixture straight from the fridge, though – it chills even quicker than a traditional compressor model, so no 24-hour waits.

Blade machines
These work a bit like freeze-first machines, but instead of freezing the bowl overnight, you freeze the mixture in the tub provided. Again, if it’s too high in fat, your mixture will become grainy, so stick to a custard or single-cream base. You can also freeze certain mix-ins directly within the ice-cream base with these models, as the blade will chop right through them.

How repairable are ice-cream makers?

Repairability varies. If you want a machine that lasts for years, look for one with easily replaceable parts and a simple design. Models with fewer hidden electronics or that can be disassembled into several pieces for cleaning are generally easier to repair at home or by a local professional. In that light, the Nutribullet Chill and Cuisinart Solo Scoops are two of the most easily repairable machines on this list in terms of the spare parts that are available.

However, spare parts won’t always cover you for issues with electrical components. It’s always worth checking whether the manufacturer of your model offers a repair service. Some have dedicated support pages on their websites where you can buy replacement parts, and of course, don’t overlook warranties when you’re making a buying decision, for valuable peace of mind if anything should go wrong.

For more, read the best (and worst) chef’s knives and the best blenders for smoothies, soups and frozen desserts

Danielle Amato is a consumer reviews journalist with almost a decade of experience covering kitchen and home appliances. She’s an avid ice-cream and pasta enthusiast (not at the same time, though she wouldn’t judge) and loves nothing more than getting stuck into a new recipe or appliance in her unofficial test kitchen

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