The 8 Best Ice Cream Makers of 2024

Donna Currie is a food writer and blogger specializing in recipes and kitchen gadgets. She covers kitchen tools and gadgets for The Spruce Eats and is the author of Make Ahead Bread.

Siobhan is a freelance writer specializing in food, wine, and kitchen products. She has a Master's degree in Food Studies, passed the WSET Level 2, Wines, with Distinction, and has written two cookbooks.

Jason Horn has been writing about food and drinks for more than 15 years and is a Commerce Writer for The Spruce Eats. He once convinced Matthew McConaughey that a hot dog is indeed a sandwich.

In This Article

In This Article

It's not the fastest or easiest kitchen project, but making your own ice cream is so, so worth it. You'll never find any fresher ice cream on a store shelf, and DIY gives you complete control over flavorings and ingredients.

Here's the thing: It's difficult to make ice cream in the comfort of your own home without an ice cream maker. There are lots of shapes, sizes, and freezing methods available—how do you decide on a model? To help, we took on the task of making and tasting dozens of ice creams. It's a tough job, but someone had to do it.

Best Overall

Cuisinart Cool Creations Ice Cream Maker

• Built-in timer
• Automatic and manual modes
• Opening for adding ingredients

• Heavy freezer bowl
• Loud

The ICE-70 makes a whopping 2 quarts of ice cream per batch and has a simple control panel with an LCD screen that’s easy to read. There are settings for ice cream, gelato, or sorbet, which control the speed of the mixing paddle. The time is automatically set for each option but can be adjusted manually, as well. During testing, it churned out a perfectly creamy soft serve texture in 25 minutes and true ice cream in 30. When time is up, the machine automatically shuts off. The unique gelato setting was a standout for us, due to its slower churn—one of the hallmarks of genuine gelato.

In testing, the Cuisinart outperformed similar freezer bowl models by a wide margin. It was incredibly easy to set up once the bowl was frozen, and it created velvety smooth ice cream. The lid has a removable cup for measuring up to 1/2 cup of add-ins, and when the cup is removed, there’s a handy hole for pouring those ingredients into the ice cream. We liked being able to mix items in without removing the lid, and the upright compact design made this easy to store. It is lightweight enough to move around the kitchen.

This machine's paddle was also a standout—when we mixed M&Ms into a batch of ice cream, they became evenly distributed through the mix. The paddle and freezer bowl were both simple to wash by hand with warm, soapy water.

One downside of this ice cream maker is that it can be loud during churning. Another is that the 2-quart freezer bowl should be refrigerated overnight for best results, so you can't make ice cream on a whim. We suggest storing it in your freezer, so it’s ready to go whenever you have that ice cream craving.

Maximum Yield: 2 quarts | Processing Time: 15-40 minutes | Setting Options: 3 | Dimensions: 9.74 x 8.62 x 13.22 inches | Weight: 14 pounds

Best Budget

Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream, & Sorbet Maker

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• Easy to use
• Easy to clean
• Inexpensive

• Small capacity
• Bulky bowl has to freeze 24 hours before use

The Cuisinart ICE-21 may not have all the bells and whistles of higher-end models, but it's fully automatic and can deliver quality homemade ice cream in 20 minutes, at an excellent price.

The process is simple and designed to be mess-free. The double-insulated freezer bowl fits into the base, the mixing paddle fits into that, and the plastic cover holds everything together. You pour in your base mixture, and as the bowl spins, the paddle scrapes a layer of frozen material off the interior wall, incorporating it back into the mixture. After about 20 minutes, you get fully churned ice cream. (To add mix-ins, you just toss them into the bowl when the batch is almost done spinning.) There's only one setting, one blade, and no timers to worry about.

In testing, our ice cream and sorbet both had even textures, albeit a bit softer and more soft–serve–like than some other machines. Sticking the finished products in the freezer for a couple of hours firmed them up, but they retained their smoothness and scoopability.

The main catch, though, is that you need a pre-frozen bowl, and this machine's is pretty bulky. If you want to be able to make ice cream at the drop of a hat, it has to live in the freezer all the time, and it'll take up a lot of room. This model has a smaller capacity than some of Cuisinart's other ice cream makers, so be mindful of batch size when you're following recipes and scale down accordingly. We didn't do the math quite right and got a little overflow in one test. Also, none of the parts are dishwasher-safe, but they're also unlikely to need much more than a rinse.

Maximum Yield: 1.5 quarts | Processing Time: 20 minutes | Setting Options: 1 | Dimensions: 9.5 x 9 x 11.3 inches | Weight: 10.1 pounds

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Best Splurge

Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker

• Automatic settings
• Bowl doesn't have to pre-freeze
• Holds ice cream at serving temperature

• Very pricey
• Slow

If you’re ready to get serious about making ice cream, the Smart Scoop offers lots of functionality for its steep price tag. Most importantly, it has its own compressor—just like a full-size freezer or air conditioner—and chills the bowl while it churns. After the ice cream is done, it'll even hold it at the perfect scooping temperature for up to three hours. You can pre-freeze the bowl just like with other models, but you can also set the machine to chill the bowl for you while you prepare your ice cream or sorbet base. And you don't have to worry about refreezing the bowl between batches, which is a boon as the machine can only make about a quart at a time, and a batch can take nearly an hour to freeze.

When it comes to settings, the Smart Scoop offers pinpoint control. There are 12 different hardness settings calibrated for different types of frozen desserts, whether you need a scoop of vanilla that will hold up in a root beer float or a softer sorbet to quenelle atop a slice of pie. Internal thermometers measure the mixture, with the internal compressor adjusting to make sure the temperature stays just right. (Unfortunately, there aren't speed settings and no slower churn for gelato.)

During our test, we got wonderfully smooth, rich, and extra-dense ice cream because of the long churn time. It did a great job with mix-ins: About two minutes before the cycle is done, the display tells you it's time to pour them in, and it incorporated all of our Oreo pieces evenly, without breaking up bigger bits. With sorbet, the machine ran for 54 minutes, which ended up with a slightly over-frozen mix with some ice crystals in it. We would have stopped it a few minutes early for better texture, but that goes against the Smart Scoop's set-it-and-forget-it sales pitch.

In all, the Smart Scoop makes really good ice cream and offers amazing control over your final results. But you're absolutely going to pay for that performance, as it carries a serious price tag. It's a great option for the frozen-dessert fanatic, or as a very generous wedding or housewarming present.

Maximum Yield: 1.1 quarts | Processing Time: 35-60 minutes | Setting Options: 12 | Dimensions: 7.2 x 16.2 x 10.7 inches | Weight: 30 pounds