Ice Cream Maker Review

Introduction to Ice Cream Makers

We located several excellent reviews that identify the best ice cream makers. Slate's review is the most comprehensive article we found, and reviewer Stephen Metcalf includes a helpful discussion of ice cream styles. Metcalf examined four manual ice cream makers and three compressor machines, using each to whip up Philadelphia-style and French-style ice cream and taste-testing the results with friends and family. Consumer Reports magazine, on the other hand, has covered only one ice cream maker: a novelty machine that makes ice cream in a plastic ball surrounded by ice.

In an April 2005 article, Gourmet magazine rates four gel canisters and six self-cooling machines, testing each with two kinds of ice cream. We appreciate Gourmet's attention to size, ease of clean-up, weight and even cord length. Editors at Cook's Illustrated reviewed five gel-canister ice cream machines and two canister-free models in 2003. More recently, Cook's prepared French-style vanilla and chocolate chip ice cream, along with lemon sorbet, in seven inexpensive, canister-style ice cream makers. Editors tasted ice cream immediately after churning, after one to two hours in the freezer, and again after two days. To their surprise, they found that some ice creams turned unpleasantly icy after a couple of days in the freezer, while others remained smooth.

Fine Cooking and Cuisine magazines each rate gel-canister ice cream makers that cost $80 or less. Both magazines focus on performance, but Cuisine's article also rates the machines for ease of operation, assembly and storage. While Cuisine made plain vanilla ice cream in its tests, Fine Cooking added lemon sorbet and vanilla ice cream with crushed Oreos to each maker's repertoire, testing each machine's ability to incorporate non-liquid ingredients such as citrus zest and cookies.

We read hundreds of owner-written reviews at Epinions.com, Amazon.com and Cooking.com. We also located several discussions about ice cream makers at Egullet.com. Most owners are wild about their ice cream makers. They love having the ability to limit calories or carbs and eliminate artificial ingredients, and they say their machines inspire them to experiment with flavors. We also read, however, that some ice cream machines have had performance problems. A few users report broken cranks, rusting, leaking gel and cracked bowls.

Among hand-cranked ice cream makers, the Donvier (*Est. $50) gets some of the poorest reviews from professional sources. For example, Cook's Illustrated gives the Donvier its lowest rating, saying that the end result was "grainy, icy, and dense." And Fine Cooking reports that ice cream freezes along the Donvier's sides, resulting in a slushy, uneven consistency. The unit lacks an opening for adding ingredients during mixing. While some owners posting to Amazon.com appreciate the Donvier's simplicity and quiet operation, others complain that it's difficult to add ingredients before the base freezes so hard that the crank won't operate.

Another ice cream maker that gets poor reviews from owners and professionals alike is the VillaWare V5100 Classic Ice Cream & Gelato Maker (*Est. $50) . According to Cook's Illustrated, the VillaWare never managed to freeze ice cream, even after more than 30 minutes of churning. Meanwhile, numerous owners posting to Amazon.com say that the ingredients must be chilled before being poured into the V5100, or the mixture will never set. Some owners say that they simply freeze the soupy ice cream until hard, but others are irate that the machine doesn't work as advertised.

With its stainless-steel housing and handles on its lid and sides, the unconventional Midas Non-Motorized Ice Cream Maker looks just like a small stockpot. There's no motor, so the mixture must be stirred manually every ten minutes. As you might expect, this doesn't lighten the ice-cream base much, and the end result is dense and mushy, say reviewers. To make matters worse, when testers tried to add chocolate chips to the mixture, they instantly sank and stuck to the bottom of the pot, never to be incorporated. However, we read a handful of positive reviews of this device at Amazon.com. Some owners say it's nice-looking and quiet, and they like making and storing ice cream in the same container, while others say it just doesn't work.