Top 10 best ice cream makers for home

With the help of such a device as an ice cream mak­er, you can pre­pare not only a tasty, but also a very use­ful prod­uct, since it will not con­tain var­i­ous kinds of dyes and fla­vors. Home­made ice cream com­pares favor­ably with those sold in stores.

How­ev­er, choos­ing the right ice cream mak­er is not as easy as it might seem. First of all, there are quite a lot of such equip­ment in house­hold appli­ance stores, so it is quite easy to get con­fused in the avail­able assort­ment. To pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing to you, we decid­ed to ded­i­cate our today’s review to the best ice cream mak­ers of 2019. Before we begin to con­sid­er the per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics of each mod­el, let’s take a clos­er look at what you need to pay atten­tion to when buy­ing this equip­ment.

Content

What factors are important when choosing an ice cream maker?

An ice cream mak­er, which is also called a freez­er, is a fair­ly com­pact device that includes a bowl for prod­ucts and a whorl that mix­es them. The over­all dimen­sions of the device are small, so it can eas­i­ly fit even in a small kitchen. Recent­ly, more and more peo­ple take such a prod­uct with them to the coun­try. You don’t have to spend a lot of mon­ey to get home­made ice cream.

There are sev­er­al types of designs: ice cream mak­ers are mechan­i­cal, elec­tric com­pres­sor and semi-auto­mat­ic. The prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion is that the whorl con­tin­u­ous­ly and even­ly mix­es the prod­ucts placed in the bowl, achiev­ing the most homo­ge­neous mass, in which there will be no ice and lumps. These prod­ucts can also be used to pre­pare oth­er dish­es — yoghurts, smooth­ies, pop­si­cles.

The bowls in which the prod­ucts are mixed are made of stain­less food steel or plas­tic. The first mate­r­i­al is the most pre­ferred, as it is absolute­ly hygien­ic and com­plete­ly safe in terms of oper­a­tion. The fact is that micro­c­racks can form on the plas­tic bowl, where bac­te­ria mul­ti­ply. Noth­ing like this should be allowed, since this con­tain­er is in direct con­tact with food, but plas­tic is much cheap­er than steel.

A mechan­i­cal ice cream mak­er requires the direct par­tic­i­pa­tion of the user. First of all, you need to put the bowl to cool in the freez­er — this will take at least 12 hours. After that, the prod­ucts are put into it and mixed for 45–50 min­utes, and once every two or three min­utes it will be nec­es­sary to scroll the han­dle, per­form­ing the func­tion of a mix­er. This design is already out­dat­ed, and besides, it is not very con­ve­nient. The cool­er here is ice mixed with coarse salt.

The bowl for the semi-auto­mat­ic ice cream mak­er will always be in the freez­er. It will fit only one serv­ing of ice cream, which will be pre­pared for about a day. How­ev­er, here the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the user is min­i­mal: you only have to press a but­ton, after which the por­tion will be pre­pared for about 30 min­utes. The com­pres­sor mod­el is the most mod­ern, besides, the bowl will not need pre-cool­ing — the device itself will bring it to the required tem­per­a­ture.

When choos­ing a device, be sure to pay atten­tion to the vol­ume of the bowl — the larg­er the fam­i­ly, the larg­er this indi­ca­tor should be. Today on sale you can find prod­ucts with a vol­ume of up to 15 liters. In terms of pow­er, this equip­ment is not too expen­sive — semi-auto­mat­ic prod­ucts con­sume no more than 35 W of ener­gy, and auto­mat­ic ones up to 200 W, mechan­i­cal ones do not need elec­tric­i­ty at all. Not too long ago, prod­ucts appeared on sale that, due to their com­pact size, can also be pow­ered by bat­ter­ies.

When com­pil­ing our rank­ing of the best ice cream par­lors of the year, we took into account all these points, and were also guid­ed by user reviews, as well as val­ue for mon­ey. We tried to col­lect as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble on each of the mod­els so that you can appre­ci­ate the pros and cons and decide whether it suits you or bet­ter to look for some­thing else. Now let’s ana­lyze the per­for­mance of each ice cream mak­er.

Nemox Dolce Vita

Anoth­er non-com­pres­sor house­hold-type ice cream mak­er. It has a dou­ble bowl, the out­er side of which is made of high-qual­i­ty plas­tic, resis­tant to tem­per­a­ture changes, inside it is made of stain­less steel, care­ful­ly pol­ished to a mir­ror fin­ish. The prod­uct has an attrac­tive appear­ance, it is easy to clean, hygien­ic in terms of use. The bowl is not sub­ject to scratch­es. The plas­tic trans­par­ent lid has a wide and rather con­ve­nient open­ing for adding the rest of the ingre­di­ents. As in oth­er cas­es, the bowl is pre-placed in the freez­er and kept for at least 8 hours at a tem­per­a­ture of ‑18 degrees and below.

It is worth not­ing that only a washed and thor­ough­ly dried bowl should be placed in the freez­er. If water remains on it, it will lat­er turn into ice, which will pre­vent the lid from clos­ing. As a result, this will lead to the fact that the engine start block­ing can­not be removed. First, the ice cream mak­er is com­plete­ly assem­bled, the motor is turned on, and every­thing you need is poured through the holes. The device has a very ele­gant design, and even the bowl itself. It can be placed on the table in the form of a con­tain­er for cool­ing drinks or for ice. It is able to main­tain a tem­per­a­ture of ‑10 degrees for 2 hours or even more.

Advantages

• Works absolute­ly silent­ly;
• Motor pow­er is 15W;
• The vol­ume of the bowl is 1.5 liters;
• The opti­mum ratio of price and qual­i­ty;
• All sur­faces are resis­tant to dam­age.

Flaws

• Not too long pow­er cord.

BRAND 3811

We present to your judg­ment the first com­pres­sor mod­el in our review of the best ice cream mak­ers of the year, which is able to pre­pare ten­der and soft ice cream with lit­tle or no human inter­ven­tion. The user only needs to down­load all the prod­ucts and click on the start but­ton of the device. The max­i­mum mass of ready-made ice cream is 1 kg — this amount is quite enough for a fam­i­ly of four to five peo­ple. The device has a very high pow­er — it con­sumes as much as 220 watts. On the front pan­el of the equip­ment there is a liq­uid crys­tal dis­play, which will dis­play all the infor­ma­tion nec­es­sary for the user, includ­ing error mes­sages.

The freez­er com­part­ment here has dou­ble walls, the body is care­ful­ly insu­lat­ed, so it will not be pos­si­ble to freeze your fin­gers or palms when work­ing with this equip­ment. The design is equipped with rub­ber­ized legs, the case is made of high-qual­i­ty plas­tic, it looks very styl­ish. It is able to fit into the inte­ri­or of any kitchen. In terms of over­all dimen­sions, an ice cream mak­er is sim­i­lar to a mul­ti­cook­er. The unit is quite heavy — its mass is as much as 11 kg.

Advantages

• There is no need to pre-freeze the bowl;
• Long ser­vice life;
• High qual­i­ty work­man­ship and assem­bly;
• Ful­ly auto­mat­ic mode for prepar­ing ice cream and oth­er dish­es.

Flaws

Premium Devices

Gemlux GL-ICM503

This is a fair­ly large freez­er, which is char­ac­ter­ized by ful­ly auto­mat­ic prepa­ra­tion of ice cream and oth­er prod­ucts. At the same time, it has a very high work effi­cien­cy — instead of the 60 min­utes declared by the man­u­fac­tur­er, the ice cream is ready in just 40–45 min­utes. The pow­er of the prod­uct is quite high — 150 W, the engine is equipped with over­heat­ing pro­tec­tion, it freezes very well. The same can be said about the qual­i­ty of prod­uct mix­ing. Despite the high lev­el of prod­uct pow­er, the unit oper­ates quite qui­et­ly — about the same as a kitchen hood. There is a lot of ready-made ice cream.

The case is made of stain­less steel, which will retain its orig­i­nal appear­ance for a long time, it does not leave fin­ger­prints and does not accu­mu­late var­i­ous kinds of pol­lu­tion. The pow­er cord is long enough, so you can place the prod­uct at a decent dis­tance from the out­let. The front pan­el has a touch-sen­si­tive liq­uid crys­tal dis­play, which is used not only to dis­play the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion, but also to con­trol the device. The bowl is made from food grade alu­mini­um. In gen­er­al, the design is of excel­lent build qual­i­ty, eas­i­ly with­stands decent phys­i­cal exer­tion, while the appear­ance does not dete­ri­o­rate at all.

Advantages

• Very handy and light ice cream bowl;
• You can cook a large amount at one time;
• The min­i­mum amount of time is spent on cook­ing one por­tion;
• There is a touch screen;
• High pow­er prod­uct;
• There is a timer;
• Works almost silent­ly.

Flaws

• Decent over­all dimen­sions;
• Quite expen­sive.

Gemlux GL-ICM507

A very inter­est­ing design, in which every­thing is at a very high lev­el, from design to func­tion­al­i­ty. There are three oper­at­ing modes: ice cream prepa­ra­tion (prod­ucts are mixed and frozen, this process takes about 60 min­utes — dur­ing this time the ice cream is com­plete­ly cooked and freezes well), only cool­ing and one mix­ing. This freez­er can be used not only at home, but also in small cafes and restau­rants with a small num­ber of vis­i­tors. The device can be used to pre­pare soft and hard ice cream, sher­bet, chilled and frozen yogurt and oth­er sim­i­lar desserts.

The con­trol here is entire­ly elec­tron­ic, car­ried out using a touch-sen­si­tive liq­uid crys­tal dis­play. A remov­able alu­minum tank with a non-stick coat­ing is sup­plied with the device. The stir­rer is remov­able — it is very easy to wash it if nec­es­sary. In one work­ing cycle, it is pos­si­ble to pre­pare about 2 kg of ice cream — this amount will be quite enough for a large com­pa­ny. The tem­per­a­ture of the fin­ished ice cream is about ‑10 degrees. If nec­es­sary, it can be kept in the freez­er for a while. The freez­er con­sumes lit­tle elec­tric­i­ty, prac­ti­cal­ly does not make noise. The case is made of high-qual­i­ty stain­less steel, which gives the prod­uct an addi­tion­al style.

Advantages

• Works silent­ly;
• Attrac­tive appear­ance;
• Elec­tron­ic con­trol;
• You can cook a decent amount of ice cream at a time — enough for a large fam­i­ly or com­pa­ny;
• High pow­er equip­ment — 200 watts.

Flaws

• The device has a decent mass: it will be prob­lem­at­ic to move it from one place to anoth­er;
• It is expen­sive com­pared to devices with­out com­pres­sors.

Nemox Talent Gelato&Sorbet

In terms of the func­tion­al part, this unit is real­ly the best ice cream mak­er. Approx­i­mate­ly the same can be said about the design and build qual­i­ty of the device — all this ful­ly jus­ti­fies the very high cost of this Ital­ian-made equip­ment. Every­thing is pre­pared quite quick­ly — in just half an hour of the mod­el’s work, you can get from eight to ten serv­ings, regard­less of the type of prod­uct: ice cream or gela­to, as well as yogurt. A remov­able buck­et is sup­plied with the device, where you can pre­pare chilled desserts and store them in the refrig­er­a­tor. In addi­tion, the mod­el is equipped with a capa­cious bowl, the vol­ume of which is one and a half liters. It is made from food grade stain­less steel.

The taste of the fin­ished prod­uct is sim­ply excel­lent. Accord­ing to the man­u­fac­tur­er, this can be achieved thanks to an inno­v­a­tive and patent­ed blade rota­tion sys­tem. It has a dou­ble rota­tion­al effect. Although the pow­er of the freez­er is far from the high­est — 150 W, how­ev­er, it is quite enough for the high-qual­i­ty oper­a­tion of the prod­uct. The design is orig­i­nal and bright, the device will best fit into the inte­ri­or of the kitchen, made in the most mod­ern spir­it. It is quite easy to clean the device from food residues. The tex­ture of the fin­ished ice cream is creamy. The prod­uct is well suit­ed for both home and pro­fes­sion­al use.

Advantages

• Amaz­ing work­man­ship;
• Extend­ed func­tion­al­i­ty;
• Con­ve­nient to use;
• Good pow­er lev­el.

Flaws

• Expen­sive prod­uct.

What else to read?