MARILYN: I made a deal with my kids. I told them, if you make the ice cream yourself, you can eat it whenever the heck you want. And I have never watched them learn to build a skill faster in my life.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
CHRISTINE: Caira, it is officially summer.
CAIRA: I feel like it’s taken us a long time to get here.
CHRISTINE: It was a brutal winter, but now we are here in summer. I don’t know about you, but in my home right now after dinner, everyone is clamoring for frozen treats, ice cream, ice pops, mochi ice cream has been a big favorite. It’s like a separate line item on my budget. Joking, not joking.
CAIRA: Totally. No, I do feel like I need to have something sweet after dinner. So because I don’t do dairy, I am constantly on the lookout for some new frozen treat and you’d be surprised how many recipes there are for things that aren’t just your typical ice cream. I love it.
CHRISTINE: I also like to have some frozen treats and you turned me on to something mind-blowing last year, which is to coat grapes and citric acid in a little sugar and freeze them. So I’ve been doing that lately as well. Really delicious.
CAIRA: I love that treat. It’s kind of like a Fruit Riot, which I’m sure you’ve seen in grocery stores now, but it’s so much cheaper.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. So in honor of the hot weather and hopefully lots of summer fun ahead, this episode we are covering the best gear for making homemade frozen treats. And there are so many different gadgets and items that you can get to make frozen treats, but I think the trick is like you might buy an ice cream maker and then it sits in your cupboard for years or you buy some ice pop molds and maybe they don’t work very well and they also sit in your cupboard. So this episode, the whole goal of it is to help direct people to what they will actually use. What’s worth the money? Because I think there’s a lot of stuff out there that it’s just not great.
CAIRA: Absolutely. So we’re bringing back Wirecutter’s senior kitchen editor, her name is Marilyn Ong, to talk about all the gear that Wirecutter recommends for making frozen treats. Plus some of the devices that our kitchen experts have tried and give a hard pass to, kind of a hot topic.
CHRISTINE: Ooh, this sounds divisive. And we’re also going to hear a few special tips throughout the episode from some other members of our kitchen team who know a lot about making frozen treats.
CAIRA: So after the break, we’ll be back with Marilyn Ong.
CAIRA: Welcome back. Today we’re speaking with Wirecutter’s kitchen editor, Marilyn Ong about the best gear for making frozen treats at home. Marilyn, welcome.
MARILYN: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
CHRISTINE: It is so great to have you back. Marilyn, your team has tested a lot of gear for making frozen treats.
MARILYN: Yes.
CHRISTINE: I mean, you’ve tested ice cream makers. You’ve tested ice pop molds. We’re going to talk a lot about that today. I am curious though to start out, why make your own homemade frozen treats? There are so many options at the grocery store.
MARILYN: True.
CHRISTINE: What is the argument for the DIY approach?
MARILYN: That’s such a good point. And we do have pics for those frozen treats at the grocery store too, ice cream sandwiches and all of that. And ingredients can be so pricey right now that I can’t even make the argument for you’re going to save money if you’re making these things at home. That’s like an upfront caveat. But if you want to try fun, wacky flavors that are not easy to find, if you’re a big fan of durian and you want to try making durian, you can experiment with flavors more, but also if you have specific dietary needs, people who are avoiding dairy or gluten, you can control exactly what goes in. You can tailor the sugar content. There’s so much you can do to tailor it to what you want specifically and that’s really the best reason to get these things at home.
CAIRA: Yeah, I really like that. As somebody who is trying to avoid dairy and watch my sugar intake, it is cool to just be able to really know what goes into the things that you’re eating.
MARILYN: Totally.
CAIRA: So there’s a really wide price range of gear for frozen treats. Our most expensive ice cream maker pick, for example, is $800.
MARILYN: Yeah, that’s extreme, but yeah.
CAIRA: That’s a little wild, especially if you’re not like, I don’t know, making your own ice cream every day or every week even. So maybe that’s really only for the advanced dessert makers. If somebody really wants something that’s affordable just to make some tasty frozen treats at home, maybe it’s just for the summertime even, what’s the best place to start?
MARILYN: Yeah. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to make frozen treats at home is popsicle molds. And we have tons of picks in the $13 to $15 range, cute little shapes, you can make sharks, but also you can just make really classic, easy to eat popsicles. And we actually have quite a few picks across our site that aren’t super expensive. We’ll get into ice cream machines later, I think, but our top pick is $60. So there’s ways to get started at home without spending a ton, for sure.
CAIRA: Okay. So now let’s talk about ice pop molds. What even makes a good one and why not just buy whatever molds are available at your closest supermarket or a discount home goods store?
MARILYN: Well, so the ones we recommend, they remove really easily. They’re easy to fill. They’re not going to break as easily. We’ve tested them over some of them over years and years and they hold up going in and out of the freezer all the time, which can be hard on plastic. A lot of them are easy to clean. We test for all of that everyday use stuff that makes them really easy.
CAIRA: And they can be fun shapes.
MARILYN: Yes. We’ve tested so many fun shapes.
CAIRA: So which ones do we recommend?
MARILYN: So we have currently a Tovalo mold that’s like $15. They’re super easy to fill. You can pull them out one at a time so you don’t have to eat six popsicles at once. You pull it out, you run it under water for 15 seconds and it slides right out. Those are really great. So I don’t know if you remember Otter Pops. Did you have Otter Pops growing up?
CAIRA: No, I did not.
MARILYN: Or like flavor ices? No? Okay.
CAIRA: Flavor ices. There we go.
MARILYN: Okay. So that kind of like tube. We have silicone picks where you fill it with… And this is the thing, you can just fill it with juice. It can be really, really easy if you want it to. You fill it up and freeze it. You can even lay them on their side. It feels a little precarious, but it won’t spill and it’ll freeze into like a little tuby thing and you can squeeze it out and eat it. So we have a pic from Tovolo that are those kinds of molds. We have these really cute ZOKU cat and dog pop molds or these shark ones. They have really great details and they’re adorable. So lots of options.
CHRISTINE: I love the ZOKU pop molds. I had those when my kids were really little. The thing I liked about them is that they’re small enough for toddlers, so you’re not getting this huge ice pop and they are such fun shapes. We were given one as a gift and I think they make great gifts like for a summer birthday party.
MARILYN: Totally.
CHRISTINE: Do you have a favorite recipe for an ice pop at this point?
MARILYN: So we tested with a really great recipe this year. So Samantha Seneviratne has a coconut cream popsicle recipe. It’s excellent, but we wanted to simplify because we’re making a bajillion of them for testing. So instead of using coconut milk and heavy cream, we just used coconut milk and then you use cream of coconut, which is like the Coco López, like the coconut version of soup and the milk.
CHRISTINE: That’s what goes in a Piña colada.
MARILYN: Exactly. And then instead of coconut shreds, we put in chunks of mango because we also, that’s part of our testing is to see how these molds handle big chunks in the popsicles and it was delicious. Mango and coconut is such a great combo. It happens to be vegan because we just use coconut milk.
CAIRA: Speaking my language.
MARILYN: Yeah. I’m going to be using that recipe all summer long. I’m very excited about that.
CHRISTINE: My kids are going to love that. I’m definitely making that one.
CAIRA: What about a mold for somebody who’s plastic conscious? Do you have a pick for that?
MARILYN: Okay. So we are so excited because this year we finally found a metal mold that we love. We’ve tested a lot of them over the years. Some of them leak. Some of them are really, you can imagine trying to get like a cube out of a metal mold. You can’t bend it. But this one, the popsicles just slide right out. You do need to rinse it underwater for a few seconds. So easy to use.
CHRISTINE: Does that come with its own sticks as well?
MARILYN: So you can get a set. They do sell metal sticks with little silicone holders at the end.
CAIRA: Wait, do popsicle molds not usually come with their own sticks?
MARILYN: All of our picks do.
CAIRA: Okay.
MARILYN: This metal pick, it’ll come with wooden popsicle sticks. I see. And then you would have to replenish those wooden sticks later once you get through them all. But you can also buy the set with the metal sticks.
CHRISTINE: And is this metal one like the classic shape?
MARILYN: Yes. They sell other shapes too, but we tested… The brand is Ecozoi. That’s the brand that we finally felt really satisfied with.
CHRISTINE: Do you use your blender for anything that you’re freezing?
MARILYN: Yeah, I mean, blenders are great. There’s the usual smoothies, slushies, milkshakes. You can definitely make icy fun treats.
CHRISTINE: I think we actually have a recommendation from Wirecutter senior staff writer, Lesley Stockton, a voice memo on a frozen treat that you only need a blender for. Let’s listen to that.
LESLEY: One of my favorite summertime treats is a watermelon slushy over Boba. When Wirecutter in the early days, we had a tiny office in downtown Manhattan and there was a boba tea place right around the corner and they made a watermelon slushy where they just blended watermelon cubes and ice in a blender until it was slush-like and then they would pour it over boba and in the dead of summer it was the most refreshing thing possible. Sometimes I would squeeze some lime over it and if you’re having a party, you can swap out the boba for some tequila and have a little fun time with it. Anyways, I love it. It’s refreshing. It’s not groundbreaking or anything, but it is more than the sum of its parts. All right, bye.
CAIRA: So what else do we recommend besides ice pop molds and ice cream makers?
MARILYN: Okay. So one of my favorites of the last few years is KitchenAid makes this great shaved ice attachment, which is awesome because your KitchenAid mixer is this amazingly strong motor. So you can just attach this to it. It does take a lot of power to shave ice, but you can put your kitchenaid to use. You pre freeze pucks of… You can do plain water and shave ice and then add syrups and stuff to it.
CAIRA: Oh, it’s like bing su, like that Korean dish.
MARILYN: Yes. Yeah. Bing su or [inaudible] or the different cultures of shaved ice. You can also freeze like a puck of milk and then when it shaves it’s actually like sheets of snow. So if you’ve ever been at a bing su place or something and they’ve called it shaped snow and then you add your condensed milk or mango, strawberry, delicious.
CHRISTINE: That sounds so good.
MARILYN: This is really fun to experiment with. So easy to tailor ingredients, to keep things dairy free, to keep things lighter and more refreshing.
CAIRA: So what if you don’t have a KitchenAid? Have you tried some standalone?
MARILYN: We did actually. I wanted to check out… So Hawaiian Shaved Ice makes a machine. It’s $100. It’s called the Hawaiian Shaved Ice Home Pro. And I was curious, that seemed like one of the more competitive ones on the market, but it did not work great. I know. Not as good as the KitchenAid attachment.
CHRISTINE: I have to ask about a different device, the Ninja Creami. I am served this constantly on Instagram. I have a lot of gym people, weightlifters and stuff and I think it’s very popular with people who are trying to make “healthy treats”. We’ve tried it. I don’t think we recommend it. Tell me more.
MARILYN: We did try it and yeah, we don’t recommend it. And here’s why. Okay. So back up for a second. The Creami works the opposite of ice cream makers. So usually you make a liquid base and you chill it and then you pour it into your ice cream maker and the ice cream maker spins and freezes it into ice cream. The Ninja Creami works the opposite way. So you make your liquid base, but then you freeze it first into like a block of frozen base and then you pop that into the machine and the machine basically drills down into that base repeatedly. Usually it has to do it several times to get that kind of fluffy soft ice cream texture out of this hard block of frozen base.
The ice cream that it makes is actually pretty good, but we’re getting a lot of burning smells.
CHRISTINE: From the motor?
MARILYN: Probably. We’re also tasting a little bit of burnt plastic. And then if you go online and you read reviews, there’s a lot of people seeing plastic shavings in their ice cream. Yeah, just the drill mechanism, I mean, it’s going hard. It’s drilling into this frozen puck of material and if it gets too close to the plastic container-
CAIRA: Is there any way to avoid that? Christine was-
CHRISTINE: I have been very curious.
CAIRA: She really wants to ask about this.
CHRISTINE: It’s like one of those things where I want to get it, but I know you don’t recommend it. So I’m like, how am I going to talk myself into getting it?
MARILYN: My brother has one. He loves it.
CHRISTINE: I did see recently you can buy metal canisters that fit into the Creami. Have you tried those?
MARILYN: We have not, but that would be a good thing to try.
CHRISTINE: Why do you think this machine is so popular with people who are trying to eat healthier and make healthier treats?
MARILYN: So my guess is freezing something first and then drilling down into it gives you more leeway with the texture of what you’re making. So in an ice cream maker, you need a certain blend of fat and sugar and liquid for the crystals to form the way you want them to and for the texture to set up in that creamy, silky, ice creamy way. So what the Ninja Creami does is if you’re adding-
CHRISTINE: I’m not in that world. Like protein powders?
MARILYN: Exactly. I’m like whey powders. The Ninja is just pulverizing it all. And so it’s going to give you a little more leeway with getting a texture that tastes yummy and goes down easy without all the usual constraints that an ice cream maker requires in order to spin the ice cream into something yummy.
CHRISTINE: Let’s cover all the Ninja things because we’re talking about ninja. So Ninja Creami, no, you don’t recommend. What about the Ninja SLUSHi maker? I think we tested this.
MARILYN: Yeah. One of our writers, Maki, tested the Ninja SLUSHi and we tested it in the test kitchen too. We tried a few different things in it and we love that thing. Ninja’s so tough. We don’t always want to love their stuff. They’re like all about making appliances that don’t fit in the categories, but the slushy was great. We did, I think like a Dr. Pepper slushy in it or some kind of soda slushy in it. It can be a little touchier. So margaritas, like frozen margaritas, that’s one thing people love to use these slushy machines for.
CAIRA: Yum
MARILYN: I know. You have to really get the alcohol and the sugar. So you have to do some tinkering with the alcohol recipes for sure. It was pretty easy to use. It was pretty easy to clean. The cleaning part feels intimidating. You’re staring at this giant machine that has slush all over the insides of it, but you can pull things out and rinse them and a lot of the stuff is dishwasher safe.
CHRISTINE: All of the Ninja products seem very big to me. I feel like my kitchen can’t accommodate these sized appliances.
MARILYN: Totally.
CHRISTINE: I don’t have enough counter space.
MARILYN: Yes. I’m picturing the person with the basement theater and like a kitchenette in their basement and they’re having people over like, “You get a slushy, you get a slushy.”
CAIRA: It’s like part of their bar cart.
MARILYN: It’s part of their personality. And how fun is that? Absolutely. But yes, the machine is huge. But yes, I was curious too if there’s ways to make slushies with not taking up two square feet of counter space. And I don’t know if you all have seen on TikTok there’s these little squeezy slushy cups.
CHRISTINE: This has made it into my feed, but it probably will because we’re talking about it.
MARILYN: Yes. Exactly. Now your phone knows. I’m going to pull it out because I actually brought some.
CAIRA: Yay.
MARILYN: So there’s a couple types. The one on TikTok that’s gotten really famous is this squeezy one. So it’s almost like a slushy-
CAIRA: Like an ice pack.
CHRISTINE: … 7-Eleven slushy shaped cup, but it’s actually frozen.
MARILYN: So it’s squeezy silicone on the outside. The whole cup squeezes.
CHRISTINE: Do you hear that? Do you hear that?
MARILYN: Yeah, that’s like an ASMR slushy cup.
CAIRA: I like it. It’s squishy.
MARILYN: So you put stuff, you have to freeze it overnight and you pull it out of your freezer and you pour stuff into it and then you slush it around.
CAIRA: You squeeze it?
MARILYN: You squeeze it.
CHRISTINE: There you go.
MARILYN: Do you want to try it? I have lemonade here and Dr. Pepper. What would you like?
CHRISTINE: Dr. Pepper.
MARILYN: So it’s instant. It’s pretty fast. Okay. The squeezy one will do it in a couple of minutes.
CHRISTINE: Okay.
CAIRA: It’s called frozen magic. Is the squeezy one. And then the other two that you have here are ZOKU and they’re hard on the outside. It’s like hard plastic.
MARILYN: So these ZOKU ones-
CHRISTINE: Should I start squeezing this?
MARILYN: Yeah. Caira, would you like to try one of the ZOKU ones?
CAIRA: I would.
MARILYN: So these are hard plastic. They’re not going to squeeze, but it’s the same thing. You freeze it overnight and you pour liquid into it. Dr. Pepper for you?
CHRISTINE: Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper all around.
MARILYN: These do take a minute, especially the ZOKU ones because you’re not squeezing frozen material into it. You’re waiting for it to crystallize on the side.
CHRISTINE: Oh, I see ice forming. Is it forming?
MARILYN: Yep. So for these ZOKU ones, you’re going to start seeing ice forming on the sides of the cup and you’re just meant to scrape it down.
CHRISTINE: So do we recommend these on the site right now?
MARILYN: Not yet.
CHRISTINE: People are getting an inside track.
MARILYN: Yes. Something we haven’t even put up. This is behind the scenes early in this.
CHRISTINE: Oh, mine is definitely turning into ice. This is so fascinating. My kids would love this.
CAIRA: Oh yeah.
CHRISTINE: How much are these guys?
MARILYN: Okay. So the frozen magic squeezy guy is $11. These ZOKU ones are $23.
CHRISTINE: Mine is slushy. Yeah, it’s Dr. Pepper and it’s good.
CAIRA: Okay. So to recap, if you want to get into some fun frozen treats for the summer, but you don’t want to just dive head first into buying your ice cream maker, you can get really great ice pop molds and those can range anywhere between 10 to 15 to $20, which is great and they’re durable and they last. You could also use your blender if you want to make a slushy or a smoothie, or if you want a shaved ice deal, then you can get the attachment for the KitchenAid too.
CHRISTINE: After the break, we are going to dive deep into ice cream makers. Marilyn, we are going to find out why we like the $60 one and when it might be worth upgrading to something more expensive. We’ll be right back.
CAIRA: Hey, we’re back. We’re going to talk about ice cream makers now, but before we do, we’re getting a tip from our staff writer Ciara Murray-Johnson, who loves making ice cream at home…
CIARA: Reading Hello, My Name is Ice Cream by Dana Cree has changed the ice cream making game for me. One of the biggest tips that I took away from her book is to use glucose syrup instead of granulated sugar. Sugar lowers the freezing point of water, so ice cream needs a good bit of sugar to keep it from freezing into one hard icy block. The chemical structure of glucose makes it more efficient at this job than granulated sugar. Plus it’s less sweet so you can better control the sweetness of your ice cream while maintaining that nice scoopable texture.
CHRISTINE: Marilyn, we cannot talk about frozen treats without getting into ice cream makers.
MARILYN: Of course.
CHRISTINE: I personally have had a couple of ice cream makers. Right now I have the KitchenAid attachment for my KitchenAid and I like it, but it has been sitting in my cupboard for three or four years. I think I’ve used it three times. I’m wondering, who do you think an ice cream maker is for in this hierarchy of all these things that we’ve talked about? Who should be getting an ice cream maker?
MARILYN: A couple of things I will say. One, I was going to ask you which one you have, so it’s good to know the KitchenAid attachment. I used to have that one too and also it sat a lot. We have the Cuisinart Ice 21 now, which is our top pick in the ice cream maker guide and we use it all the time. It’s just so nice to have one compact machine that does it. You set it up and it will just do the thing. I also will say I took a lot of the pressure off of the kind of ice cream that we make. Totally anybody who’s excited to make ice cream at home, it doesn’t have to be a super complicated thing.
I made a deal with my kids. I told them, “If you make the ice cream yourself, you can eat it whenever the heck you want.” And I have never watched them learn to build a skill faster in my life, but that means we stick to simpler recipes. We’re not doing custards so we’re not usually separating yolks and whites and we’re usually using slightly simpler recipes with heavy cream or cream cheese or we’re doing frozen yogurts, but you really can do so much even if you’re keeping it simple. I love a French style custardy ice cream, but I am not mad at the stuff that my kids have been making. I’ll say that.
CHRISTINE: Well, so is that the reason to get it? It’s just fun to make your own ice cream. You said earlier you can tweak the ingredients, you can make it healthier, but I can buy some really great ice cream at the store and I feel like to go buy nice milk and good vanilla and all the ingredients ends up being expensive. Here I am being like the Debbie Downer on ice cream, but I’m just curious, I felt like, why would I make vanilla ice cream in my ice cream maker when I can make great vanilla ice cream at the store?
MARILYN: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s just one of those tools where if you’re the type of person who enjoys experimenting, it is going to be a really fun way to treat yourself over the summer. So for our family, we go berry picking, and we come back and we have tons of blueberries. We made blueberry frozen yogurt. We had tons of raspberries. Raspberry ice cream is one of my kids’ favorite flavors, so they make that every summer. We get a pineapple. Do people know this at Wirecutter? We get an anniversary pineapple every year.
CHRISTINE: I think it’s the first time it’s come up on the show.
CAIRA: Ship straight from Hawaii.
CAIRA: Yeah. They are shipped from Hawaii.
CHRISTINE: Maui Gold.
MARILYN: Yes. They’re delicious and I like to make ice cream with that and I will use the pips and the stems to make a pineapple syrup, which then I will sometimes put on the shaved ice. We really enjoy having this kind of arsenal of different things to… Ingredients flow through our homes. I’m just the kind of person who really enjoys playing with, let’s throw this into a batch of ice cream and see what happens. Or someone brought over too much eggnog the other day. Let’s turn that into ice cream.
CHRISTINE: I like that.
CHRISTINE: So it can be a way to kind of use up things that you maybe don’t have a use for otherwise.
MARILYN: Yeah, just to have fun with the things that are flowing through your house.
CHRISTINE: Okay. So you talked a little bit earlier about the difference between how an ice cream maker makes ice cream versus the Creami that we talked about earlier. Maybe you can just get into it a little bit more. How is it actually working? Because there’s a couple different types of ice cream makers that we recommend. The main one, the Cuisinart is you put it into the freezer and then there’s a different type that uses what is called a compressor.
MARILYN: Yes.
CHRISTINE: So explain the difference between those two.
MARILYN: So the basic thing, you’re putting your liquid ice cream base into your ice cream maker and usually it’s like a bowl and that bowl will have a really cold freezing temperature surface and usually there will be something in there that is scraping the side of the bowl. We call it a dasher. So your cream’s in there, it’s chilling and then it’s like sticking to the bowl and then that dasher is scraping the frozen ice cream off the sides of the bowl and back into the mixture. And as it does that, over time you get this swirly, wippy, beautiful ice cream. So our top pick, the Cuisinart Ice 21, they use insulated bowls that you have to stick in your freezer, double walled, metal bowl and inside is a liquid that when it freezes, it gets really cold and then you pull it out of the freezer just as you’re ready to churn your ice cream and it will freeze your concoction nice and quick.
Other machines that we recommend, most of them are the brand Whynter. Just like you said, they have a compressor, which is like the core of your refrigerator or your air conditioner. It’s circulating coolant to create like this coldness. And so those machines, you plug them in, you don’t have to freeze them overnight and they have a mechanism inside that will chill the bowl. Often our medium range compressor picks from Whynter, they’re like $200 to $300 and they actually take a little bit longer than the Cuisinart Ice 21 to turn your ice cream because it takes time for the compressor to start working. Our fancy $800 one, that one works so fast that it’s just as fast as the Cuisinart Ice 21 and they have different pros and cons. I just mentioned our top pick, the Cuisinart Ice 21 is actually quite fast because you’re pulling it out of the freezer and it’s just frozen from the get go, but it can be a pain to store a freezer bowl in your freezer.
CHRISTINE: I mean, I think that’s why I never make the ice cream because I don’t have room in my freezer and then I always forget, oh, and then it’s like I don’t want to wait for it to freeze.
MARILYN: Yeah. I will say in the summertime we store our freezer bowl in the freezer at all times and we pull it out and we use it and we wash it and then we just stick it back in the freezer.
CAIRA: So if the top pick, which is $60 as Cuisinart, is faster than the upgrade pick, which is $800, why are you paying $800?
MARILYN: So it’s not faster than the $800 pick. It’s a little bit faster than the $200 to $300 range machines that we recommend. Again, some of it just comes down to what people are looking for. One of the first things that I’m going to ask anyone who’s getting ready to buy an ice cream maker is what texture of ice cream do you love? Do you like dense chewy ice cream or do you like the really fluffy, airy, stretchy style of ice cream? Because the different machines that we recommend produce slightly different textures.
CHRISTINE: Give us the breakdown.
MARILYN: Yeah. So the Cuisinart Ice 21 produces slightly denser, richer, chewier ice cream. We have two Whynter machines that we recommend. So the Whynter ICM 201SB, lovely name. That one makes more light textured ice cream. It’s more fluffy, more airy. What they call overrun is the air that gets added to ice cream when it’s being churned. A higher overrun ice cream will have more air whipped into it in the turning process and that will be a fluffier marshmallowier ice cream texture. And then the Whynter ICM 15LS makes slightly denser ice cream and that’s more similar to the Cuisinart. So with our two compressor picks, you can choose what ice cream texture you’re gearing towards. But the benefit of the $200 to $300 machines is because you don’t have to freeze the bowl, you could make batch after batch after batch after batch. On the Cuisinart bowl style maker, you’d have to freeze the bowl again after making a batch. So you’d have to wait the next day to make your next batch of ice cream.
CAIRA: I have a really dumb question.
MARILYN: Go for it.
CHRISTINE: No questions are dumb.
CAIRA: No, this was really dumb. But I’m like, every ice cream that I buy in the store is in a very specific container. What are you keeping the ice cream in a bowl?
MARILYN: That’s a great question.
CHRISTINE: It is a great question. I am all ears. What do you keep your ice cream in?
MARILYN: I honestly have ended up using a lot of takeout quart containers. It’s just so easy.
CAIRA: A plastic?
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Sometimes when I have made ice cream, I’ll put it into a glass storage containers that we recommend on the site.
MARILYN: Yeah. I’ve totally done that too.
CHRISTINE: Okay. So we covered these $200 to $300 compressor units, these ones from Whynter.
MARILYN: Yes.
CHRISTINE: Tell us who should be thinking about this $800 machine that we recommend.
MARILYN: So do you all know this machine was in the Gilmore Girls?
CHRISTINE: No.
MARILYN: Have you?
CAIRA: Oh my God. It’s the gift that she gets after she cancels her wedding.
MARILYN: It totally is.
CHRISTINE: What’s it called?
MARILYN: It’s called the Lello Musso Lussino. It’s an Italian machine and it is designed to produce more of a gelato texture, which do you guys like gelato?
CHRISTINE: I love gelato. It’s my favorite type of ice cream.
MARILYN: Okay. So you have to get the $800 machine.
CHRISTINE: I guess so.
MARILYN: And this machine, I mean just hands down every year that we’ve tested since 2015 has produced just the most gorgeous ice cream texture. It is a compressor machine and this compressor works really fast. Also, you can just do batch after batch after batch. The biggest flaw of the Lello is that the bowl is not removable. So when you’re done making your ice cream, you’re letting it melt, you’re scooping out all the excess and then you’re wiping it down.
CHRISTINE: What?
MARILYN: I know.
CHRISTINE: That’s wild.
CAIRA: Wow.
MARILYN: I know. But it is all stainless steel. It’s really high quality material and so it sounds intense, but it wipes away really cleanly, really quickly.
CHRISTINE: So who is this for? Is it for the person who is just obsessive about making the best ice cream and they maybe want to cut down their $8 scoop habit down the street at the gelato store.
MARILYN: Yeah. I mean, gelato is pricey. It’s pricier than a lot of the other ice cream you can get out there. If you know you’re going to use this thing, if you have a lot of counter space, this thing is huge and it’s very heavy. And so if you are going to be using it often, likely you’re going to want to be able to park it somewhere. It’s also gorgeous. It just looks like a little time machine mid-century appliance. It’s gorgeous.
CAIRA: If you have $800 to drop on something completely frivolous then you probably have the counter space.
MARILYN: Yeah. Or a lot of people use it because they’re starting small businesses. They’re serving ice cream somewhere.
CHRISTINE: It’s a great excuse to get a really nice machine.
CAIRA: I just can’t believe that Lorelei gave it back. Spoiler alert.
MARILYN: I know.
CHRISTINE: Ok, we’ve got one more fun tip from senior staff writer Kathleen Squires. She is also the co-author of a book about ice cream sandwiches from the beloved brand Coolhaus… so she knows what she’s talking about.
KATHY: Here are some tips from Cool Haus on making the best ice cream sandwiches at home. First, be generous with flavoring as freezing will mute the flavor. Second, if you’re making a boozy ice cream, add alcohol at the very end of the process. If you add too early on, the ice cream won’t freeze. Third, always add your mix-ins last for even distribution and so that they won’t sink to the bottom. Finally, after you make the ice cream and cookies, build your sandwiches and freeze as a whole instead of making them on the fly so that they won’t fall apart and they’ll be easier to eat. Happy eating.
CAIRA: Okay. Well, we’ve made it to our final question. So Marilyn, before we wrap, what is the last thing that you’ve bought that you’ve really loved?
MARILYN: Okay. So I’ve been total used furniture obsessed lately and was at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. And I came across these wing back chairs and they were pretty grody. So grody in fact that they lowered the price to $25 each.
CHRISTINE: Nice.
MARILYN: So I took the deal and I was like, this is the perfect excuse to buy the Bissell Little Green.
CHRISTINE: Which it’s an upholstery cleaner.
MARILYN: Yes. It’s one of our picks for a portable upholstery carpet cleaner. You spray it with water and solution and you scrub, scrub, scrub, and then you soak up all the dirty water back up again. So I took that and some Dawn dish soap. Chairs, you’ve got the head oils in the back where people are sitting. But I went to town with that Bissell Little Green. Most of the grime lifted right up. There’s maybe like a couple coffee stains or something, but they’re also much lighter. It’s beautiful.
CAIRA: For $25?
MARILYN: It was so satisfying.
CHRISTINE: That’s awesome. I love it.
CAIRA: Thank you so much, Marilyn.
MARILYN: Thank you.
CHRISTINE: I’ll have to have you back on soon.
MARILYN: Love it.
CHRISTINE: Caira, who knew there were so many things to make amazing frozen treats with?
CAIRA: I mean, we could go on and on and off. What was your takeaway?
CHRISTINE: One takeaway is that I really, really want one of these KitchenAid shaved ice makers and I will put that on my list of like the next time I’m willing to spend $80 on something, I will consider getting that. But that sounds so fun and my kids would love it.
CAIRA: You could just get it now, Christine.
CHRISTINE: I know.
CAIRA: Well, for me, I think because I have limited kitchen space and I don’t really do dairy, I’m going to keep it simple. I think I’m going to get some ice pop molds this summer. I love that. I really want to try her recipe for the mango.
CHRISTINE: The coconut mango ice pops. Yeah, that sounds great.
CAIRA: And maybe make it a little fun, throw a little alcohol in there and then I have a nice summer treat. So that’s my takeaway.
CHRISTINE: I love that.
CAIRA: So if you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s coverage or if you want to check out any of the products we recommended today, go to nytimes.com/wirecutter or find a link in the show notes. That’s it for us until next week. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.
CHRISTINE: Bye.
CAIRA: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, Catherine Anderson, Rowan Niemisto, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: Thanks for listening.
MARILYN: Okay. My question for you, because we had some interesting reactions in the test kitchen yesterday when we were trying these out for the first time. Christine, do the visuals of that-
CHRISTINE: It’s a gross. It looks gross.
MARILYN: It is. It looks very anatomical.
CHRISTINE: It looks like an orifice, honestly. Yeah. Sorry.
