The weather might be chilly right now, but anyone with a sweet tooth knows that ice cream is delicious all year round. And if you really want to feed your ice cream addiction, the only way to go is to get your own at-home maker.
Right now, the Cuisinart Solo Scoops Ice Cream Maker is just £29.99 at Amazon, down from £39.99. That’s a massive £112 cheaper than the Ninja CREAMi Ice Cream Maker & Frozen Dessert Maker – a leader in the market, which is currently £141.99 down from £199.99 (it’s currently full price on the Ninja website).
Several variants of the Cuisinart are available, with larger sizes of pre-freeze bowls ranging up to 2L and £79.99, and a compressor option at £199.99 down from £300. The 475ml option will be more than enough to produce an eight-scoop tub’s worth of ice cream. With a handy chute you can easily add chocolate chips, dried fruit and the like to your creations, and the machine itself can be set to produce gelato, sorbet and frozen yoghurt too.
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Along with this array of options, the machine is a compact, space-saving device with a wrapable cord, stackable lid, and discreet form factor. It can be used with one-touch operation, and comes with a three-year warranty to boot. It’s got legions of happy customers behind it, with an Amazon score of 4.5 out of 5 stars from 2,779 ratings at the time of writing.
“Amazing piece of kit — makes the finest ice cream you’ll ever eat, with minimal effort and you don’t have to keep waiting 12 hours for a bowl to freeze!” said one five-star review. “Believe me, once you’ve had this ice cream, you’ll never want to touch any commercial variety again.”
“My daughter-in-law has recently developed many allergies and can no longer eat shop-bought ice cream,” said another review. “With the Cuisinart I can easily adapt recipes to ensure that they are safe for her to eat and the whole family can enjoy without worry. I have made a range of flavours and every one has turned out perfectly!”
Another added: “Overall, this is a great ice cream maker. The mechanism itself is surprisingly simple and the ice cream itself is far superior to anything shop-bought.”
Others have struggled with getting the most out of it. “The design is just plain weird. The paddle doesn’t rotate, the bowl does!” said one review. “There is a great deal of frozen ice cream stuck to the sides and bottom of the bowl at the end of the churning process which is a totally different consistency, so it’s quite wasteful.” Another said: “Once you’ve made the ice cream, getting it out of the bowl and paddle is such a faff! You spend ages and ages trying to get the ice cream out and into the container!”
For alternatives at budget prices, check out the Giles & Posner Ice Cream Maker – reduced to £19.99 at Robert Dyas right now. There’s also this Ice Cream Maker Machine for £39.99 at The Range.
But for a machine that can go toe-to-toe with the much-loved Ninja, pick up the Cuisinart Solo Scoops Ice Cream Maker at £29.99 while the discount is active.