Making your own ice-cream at home has many benefits. One of those is that you get to control exactly what goes in, so whether you're trying to cram as much chocolate in as possible or cut back on the sugar, you're covered.
Now, thanks to a new wave of products, coming up with those frozen creations quickly from the comfort of your kitchen just got easier too.
While historically most of the best ice-cream makers all required some element of pre-freezing (whether that's stashing a bowl in your freezer or preparing a tub of ingredients in advance), I've spotted a wave of new machines with cooling elements built-in are here to save the day. Here's how they work.
Which ice-cream makers allow you to skip freezing?
Here at Ideal Home, we've been testing ice-cream makers for years as part of our commitment to our testing protocol, so we know that no-freeze ice-cream makers aren't totally new.
In fact we tested one this time last year, the Cuisinart Ice Cream and Gelato Professional (currently reduced to £199.99 at Amazon) – a product our tester Helen awarded a straight five-stars in her review (which for her, is extremely rare). That product has a refrigerating element built-in so that whatever ingredients you pop into the bowl immediately freeze.
Helen found it easy to use and loved the immediate frozen results, particularly the gelato. She said she could never go back to shop-bought ice-cream after trying it - high praise indeed.
From there, designs of at-home machines started to change. I think it all started with the launch of the Ninja Slushi, which I've tried myself at home. It's an upright frozen drinks dispenser featuring a cooling cylinder and a spinning auger, which work together to create slushies without ice. The USP of the Slushi is that it works extremely quickly – every drink I've made in it has been ready in under 30 minutes flat.
But crucially, while the Slushi is limited to drinks, there are now products that use those same kind of freezing elements to allow you to make soft serve and ice cream at home in the same very short time frame, as well as drinks.
The best I've seen so far is the Cuisinart Frost Fusion, which I recently previewed. Why? Well it takes everything that's gone so viral with the Ninja Slushi and the Ninja Swirl (which is now finally available to pre-order) but allows you to have your frozen treats almost instantaneously.
So with no pre-freeze necessary, you can magic up delicious frozen treats for the entire family. For years, commercial-grade machines with refrigerants built-in would set you back thousands of pounds, which is why it's so exciting (maybe just as a Kitchen Appliances Editor!) to see ones we can buy for our homes at accessible price points.
As for the Frost Fusion, I can't wait to try it out for myself in our upcoming review to see how it lives up to its advertised features.
Hopefully we'll see a lot more of these ice-cream makers soon as let's be honest, pre-freezing ice cream mixes or freezer bowls is always the worst part of the process. Here's a round-up of all of the best skip-the-freeze products out there so far.
We've loved this machine ever since we tested it last year – the built-in cooling element made for the best gelato our reviewer had ever made at home.
You can make ice cream, frozen drinks (including cocktails and wine) and frappes galore with this new innovation from Cuisinart.
We also previewed this one from ProCook, a brand we love for its affordability, which features a digital display and control panel. Snazzy!
Are you tempted to invest in an ice-cream maker now you know you can skip the wait time on freezing?
