Ice cream making is an art with a delightful process, endless customization, and a remarkably satisfying result. Luckily, it only takes an ice cream machine and an excellent recipe to make it at home!
Take your pick from this list of the best ice cream makers to churn some delectable frozen desserts. Let’s dive right in!
The Best Ice Cream Makers
Getting the perfect scoops, even with deeply frozen ice cream, is made effortless with these scoops.
Cuisinart Ice Cream and Gelato Professional: Best Self-Freezing
This is my ice cream maker and I couldn’t be happier! You can read all about what I think of it in my post all about the Cuisinart Professional. This is one of the compressor models that doesn’t require pre-freezing the bowl. With two different paddles for ice cream and gelato, this fantastic ice cream maker consistently produces velvety smooth delicious ice cream.
While it may not have many settings, it does have easy-to-use buttons and takes about 40 minutes to churn ice cream, gelato, and sorbet. Its design makes it slim and deep, not taking up too much kitchen counter space.
Since it has a built-in freezer model, you don’t have to wait 12 hours to freeze the bowl, making it easy to make batch after batch of ice cream!
Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream, and Sorbet Maker: Best Freezer Bowl
This Cuisinart ice cream maker is affordable, compact, lightweight, and has super simple functionality.
It proves that you don’t need fancy or expensive ice cream makers to make great ice cream at home. With a mixing paddle and a double-insulated freezer bowl, you can mix up multiple batches fast and easily; it takes only 20 minutes for a batch.
You can also add mix-ins, such as chocolate chips, into the freezer bowl when the batch is almost done spinning. The final texture of the churn is similar to soft-serve ice cream.
The only downsides are a smaller capacity (1.5 quarts) and you’ll have to freeze the bowl 24 hours before use.
Find the Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream, Sorbet Maker here!!
Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker: Best Old-Fashioned (USA only)
Making ice cream in the good ol’ days required a lot of ice and rock salt. However, the Hamilton Beach ice cream maker combines modern and traditional ice cream-making processes.
Just add ice and rock salt to the outer container and your ice cream base to the inner bowl; there’s no need for a pre-frozen bowl. A motorized paddle churns the base till it’s frozen.
This machine can make delicious and smooth ice cream, gelato, sherbet, and frozen yogurt, and it only takes about 45 minutes. This hits the right spot for a budget price, large capacity, and compact size!
Find Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker here!!
Immergood Stainless Steel Ice Cream Maker: Best Hand-Cranked (USA only)
Sure, most ice cream makers are electric and fully automatic these days. But making ice cream with the Immergood hand-crank ice cream tub is an experience in itself!
Although it has an attractive retro look, it’s made of rust-proof stainless steel, has durable triple-layer insulation, a generous six-quart capacity, and will last for generations if handled well.
You can even have kids join in to churn some excellent ice cream safely.
Find the Immergood Stainless Steel Ice Cream Maker here!!
KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment: Best Attachment
If you already have a KitchenAid stand mixer, you won’t have to purchase a separate machine for your ice cream-making process; just the attachment would do.
With a freezer bowl and a dasher for a churning paddle, it churns about two quarts of ice cream or gelato in just 20-25 minutes. Of course, you’ll have to pre-freeze the freezer bowl for about 24 hours before you start churning.
The drawback with this attachment is that there’s no automatic shutoff as with most other dedicated machines; you’ll have to keep an eye on it while it churns.
Find the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment here
Whynter Ice Cream Maker: Best for Large Capacity
Whether to splurge on a large-capacity ice cream maker or not depends on how much ice cream your household consumes.
Apart from making great dairy ice cream, sorbet, and frozen yogurt, it also churns out delicious vegan ice creams with a perfectly creamy texture. This is a plus point since some ice cream makers don’t handle fat alternatives as nicely as cream.
You’ll also appreciate its capacity of two quarts, the extended cooling function that ensures your creamy ice cream doesn’t melt right away, the scooper that comes with the machine, and its overall ease of use and setup.
Find the Whynter Ice Cream Maker here!!
Ninja CREAMi Ice Cream Maker: Super Fast and Easy!
Possibly the fastest way to make ice cream at home. Just freeze your base for 24 hours and then it takes minutes for the ice cream to be made!
You can choose between Ice Cream, Sorbet, Gelato, Milkshake, Smoothie Bowl, Lite Ice Cream and drinks! You can customize your flavor and texture by mixing in your favorite chocolate, nuts, candy, fruit, and more to personalize any CREAMi treat.
You can even re-spin it if you want it even creamier. It’s super easy and really fun for the whole family!
Find the Ninja CREAMi Ice Cream Maker here!!
The cherry on top
If you’re among the ice cream lovers, this list of the best ice cream makers will encourage you to churn out some homemade ice cream to relish and share.
From simple yet delicious vanilla ice cream to vegan ice cream or any creative flavor, you’ll be delighted to make your frozen dessert with these ice cream machines.
So, what are you waiting for? Get that machine you have your eye on and the ingredients of your choice to churn some amazing ice cream. I highly recommend the Cuisinart ice cream and gelato professional to get started.
