Ice-cream makers: Features explained
Freezer bowl
First you freeze the inner bowl, then you put your mixture in to freeze
Simple ice-cream makers use a freezer bowl, which has a metal inner layer and plastic outer layer. Between the layers is a liquid or gel - this freezes when you put the bowl in your freezer.
You usually need to pre-freeze the bowl for between 12-24 hours before you can use it in the ice-cream maker. You'll need a space roughly 14x20cm in your freezer to accommodate most freezer bowls.
When you need to use the frozen bowl, put it into your ice cream maker then insert the mixture and paddle.
Spinning bowls
A few ice-cream makers (like the one pictured above) have a freezer bowl that sits on top of the motor unit and spins round very fast. The ice cream sitting in the bowl is forced over the fixed paddle, which churns in air.
This design mixes and cools the ice cream very quickly.
Built-in freezer
A built-in freezer means you can make iced desserts spontaneously
Some more expensive ice-cream makers freeze the bowl and mixture as it churns.
You might need to turn the machine's freezer on five minutes before starting the paddle and adding the mix through the lid.
If you're quick, you can add the mixture to the bowl and get the paddle turning before the mixture gets too frozen.
Paddle
Most ice-cream makers have a motorised paddle that churns the ice cream from above.
A motorised paddle saves buckets of time and creates a consistent texture
You usually have to insert the paddle into the motor unit, which can require good coordination and dexterity.
The paddle often gets stuck in the ice cream when it has become frozen and detaches from the motor unit when you take the lid off. Removing the paddle from the ice cream can be a messy business as you have to dig it out by hand.
A few ice-cream makers have a fixed paddle that you stick into a spinning bowl. They usually turn the mixture very quickly so it's frozen very evenly, but they have a tendency to slice the edges of softer ingredients. This can lead to a bitty mixture – it is nicer, for instance, to bite into a whole raisin than encounter tiny scraps of raisin skin in your ice cream.
Dosing hole
A large dosing hole makes adding ingredients easy
This hole in the lid of most ice-cream makers lets you add ingredients to the bowl. Many dosing holes are fairly small, which makes pouring your ice-cream mix difficult without smearing it all over the sides of the lid.
Removable bowls
These are usually thin metal canisters that sit in the fixed freezer bowls of ice-cream makers with built-in freezers. They can be washed in warm water as soon as you remove the ice cream.
Look out for one with a handle. This makes it considerably easier to remove the bowl from the freezing chamber without freezing your fingers.
Capacity
From large to small - there's an ice-cream maker for every appetite
The ice-cream makers we've tested have a capacity of between 720 ml and 2 litres, with the majority making around 1 to 1.5 litres.
In most cases, the recipe books that go with them give you the appropriate quantities to use. If you use recipes from another source, scale the quantities up or down accordingly.
Most also have a minimum amount of mixture that you should make in them.
Unhelpfully, some ice-cream makers don't tell you how much ice cream they are able to make. This means you'll simply need to follow their recipes, work out approximately how much ice cream they create, then scale up or down other recipes to suit the capacity.
Recipe books
Most ice-cream makers come with a selection of recipes to get you started – they’re usually basic recipes.
Paying more for your ice-cream maker doesn't guarantee a better or wider selection of recipes.
However, TV chefs seem to love home-made ice cream and you can find a great selection of recipes on the websites of TV channels that show a lot of cookery programmes (see 'Making ice cream').