So you have a bowl of cream, milk, and sugar, and you want to turn it into ice cream.  What are your options?  You could just throw it into the freezer for a while, but you’d just get a frozen block of sweet cream — not exactly ice cream.  What’s missing?  The secret ingredient: air.

Ok, so what if you threw it into the freezer, but every fifteen minutes you took it out and stirred it with a fork?  Now you have something resembling ice cream.  Not anything you could really call good ice cream, but at least it has air mixed in with the other ingredients now.

What if you stirred it up every five minutes instead?  Then the ice cream would be a little better.  What about every 2 minutes?  Or every 30 seconds?  Or what if you just crawled into the freezer, shut the door from the inside, and kept stirring continuously?  Now you’ve got something resembling good ice cream!  (and hypothermia)

When you put the mix into an ice cream machine, the inside wall of the bowl is the coldest part, so tiny bits of the mix freeze there and form crystals.  The machine’s dasher comes by and scrapes that tiny bit of frozen mix off the side of the bowl, making room for more mix to freeze there, and form more crystals.  The faster the dasher moves, the more crystals you get, and the smaller they are.  Which is why good ice cream has lots and lots of tiny little crystals, and bad ice cream (like the kind you made when you stirred it every fifteen minutes) has fewer crystals, and each one is larger.  If the crystals are large enough, you start to feel them on your tongue, and it feels icy rather than smooth.

Last year for my birthday, a friend gave me one of those Ice Cream Balls that you roll around on the ground to make ice cream.  The plastic ball has two openings: one goes to a metal canister that you pour the mix into, and the other goes to the open space inside the ball where you can add ice and rock salt.  The ice essentially surrounds the metal canister where the mix is, so it works the same way as an ice cream machine.  The mix freezes against the side of the metal, forming crystals.  But the dasher in this case is human-powered, when you open it and scrape down the sides of the canister.  The ice cream comes out with a pretty uneven consistency, but I had to admit, when we tried it while camping one hot weekend, it was a lot better than I expected, and we ate it all up!

The salt, by the way, lowers the freezing point of the ice water from 32 F (0 C) to around -6 F (-21 C).  If you tried to make ice cream without the salt, the ice wouldn’t be cold enough to freeze the mix, because the milk and sugar both lower the freezing point (so does alcohol — use too much, and your ice cream won’t freeze).  When I opened up the ball to add more ice, I poured out the water while straining the remaining ice with my fingers.  WOW.  My fingers were instantly frozen.  It was a LOT colder than normal ice water, and I won’t be doing that again.

But let’s talk about real-deal ice cream machines.

I’m gonna just come right out and say this.  There’s no way to get around it.  My ice cream machine is the Lello 4080 Musso Lussino.  There, I said it.  Yep, it’s expensive.  Like $700 expensive (it was $600 when I bought it two years ago, but still).  I wanted the best machine I could get, and even after two years, I’m convinced this is still the one.  It makes 1.5 quarts in about 30 minutes, which is pretty much the same as all the home machines.  But there are differences.

Lello 4080 Musso Lussino:

• The entire machine is stainless steel.  The case, the freezing bowl, even the dasher.  No plastic moving parts.
• It has a built-in compressor so it freezes as it churns.  No bowls to freeze overnight, and if you have an ice cream party like I did the other day, you too can make nine (or more) batches of ice cream back-to-back.  Even if you make just one batch, you can make it any time you want.
• It has a strong 100-watt motor to drive the dasher, which spins at a super fast 100 revolutions per minute (from my very unofficial testing).
• The motor is on the bottom, not the top.  When the motor is on the top, you can’t lift off the lid without lifting off the motor and the dasher as well.  To get around this, some machines have a little chute you can pour things like M&Ms down.  Since the dasher on this one is driven by a motor in the base, the plastic lid is the full diameter of the bowl and can be removed at any time, to add ingredients or to just watch how it’s all coming together.
• The machine just looks cool, and it makes fantastic ice cream.
• On the negative side, it’s bigger, weighs 38 pounds (17 Kg), and doesn’t have a removable bowl for cleaning.  I keep it on the counter and clean it with a sponge in about two minutes, so those aren’t problems for me, but I’ve heard other people complain about them.  Oh, and did I mention it’s expensive?

So I also have to admit that I don’t have a lot of experience with the machines in the $50-250 range.  Well, like none, actually.  But I’ve read lots (and lots!) of reviews about the various machines, so I think I can talk a bit about what the differences are.  Then you can decide what’s best for you.  All of them will make ice cream, and most of them will make good ice cream.  But in case you don’t want to spend $600-700 on an Italian ice cream machine (you don’t?), here are some other options.  Some use a coolant-lined bowl that must be pre-frozen at least 8 hours (many people say 24 hours) and some have a built-in compressor freezer like mine.

Machines with a coolant-lined freezer bowl:

These machines are fairly inexpensive.  They tend to have plastic parts, and bowls that have to be pre-frozen, but many people say they work well if you’re not making a lot of ice cream and don’t mind having to keep the bowl in the freezer.  From my very unofficial testing, they tend to have dashers that spin at a much slower 20-25 revolutions per minute compared to the Musso Lussino’s 100 rpm above.  The Cuisinart ICE-20 seems to be a good entry-level machine and is very popular.

Cuisinart ICE-20:

• Around $50.
• 1.5 Quarts, 10 pounds (4.5 Kg).
• Coolant-lined bowl that must be pre-frozen.  Additional bowls are around $30.
• 50 watt motor with plastic parts.
• Very popular.  About half the authors of the ice cream blogs I checked are using it.  The other half are using the ICE-50BC with the built-in compressor freezer (see below).
• Made in China.

Cuisinart ICE-30BC:

• Around $70.
• 2 Quarts, 12 pounds (5.5 Kg).
• Coolant-lined bowl that must be pre-frozen.  Additional bowls are around $45.
• Plastic parts.
• Made in China.

KitchenAid KICA0WH Ice Cream Maker Attachment:

• Around $70.
• 2 Quarts, 7 pounds (3 Kg).
• Requires a KitchenAid stand mixer ($200+).
• The attachment is basically just the coolant-lined freezer bowl that attaches to the stand, and a plastic dasher assembly that attaches to the mixer.
• Since the bowl is open on top, the ice cream is always visible and it’s easy to add ingredients.
• Made in the USA.

Machines with a built-in compressor freezer and plastic parts:

These machines are more expensive because of the compressor, but give you more freedom to make as much ice cream as you want, when you want it.  They tend to have stronger motors, but with plastic parts, and tend to run at a slower 20-25 rpm compared to the Musso Lussino’s 100 rpm (from my very unofficial testing).  The Cuisinart ICE-50BC is very popular and seems like a good compromise between size and price.  Although two of the machines are called “gelato” machines, they’ll definitely make ice cream as well — and for that matter, any of the “ice cream” machines listed on this page will make gelato (or sherbet, or sorbet) too.

Lello 4070 Gelato Junior:

• Around $190.
• 1 Quart, 33 pounds (15 Kg).
• Built-in compressor freezer, 160 watt motor, plastic parts, and a removable bowl.
• Made in China by Lello.

Cuisinart ICE-50BC:

• Around $250.
• 1.5 Quarts, 33 pounds (15 Kg).
• Built-in compressor freezer, plastic parts, and a removable bowl.
• Very popular.  About half the authors of the ice cream blogs I checked are using it.  The other half are using the ICE-20 with a freezer bowl (see above).
• Made in China.

Lello 4090 Gelato Pro:

• Around $400.
• 2 Quarts, 43 pounds (19.5 Kg).
• Built-in compressor freezer, 235 watt motor, plastic parts, and a removable bowl.
• Made in China by Lello.

Machines with a built-in compressor freezer and stainless steel parts:

Like the machines with plastic parts above, these have a built-in compressor and stronger motors, but the models below have stainless steel parts.  The 4080 Musso Lussino I have also runs at a much faster 100 rpm (unofficially).  If you’re serious about making ice cream, one of these may be what you need.  Both machines are made in Italy by Musso (and distributed in the USA by Lello) and seem very durable because of their stainless steel assembly.

Lello 4080 Musso Lussino:

• Around $700.
• 1.5 Quarts, 38 pounds (17 Kg).
• Built-in compressor freezer, 100 watt motor, faster dasher (100 rpm, unofficially), stainless steel parts, and a non-removable bowl.
• Large see-through lid that can be removed any time while churning.
• Made in Italy by Musso, distributed by Lello.

Lello 5030 Musso Pola:

• Around $1,100.
• 2 Quarts, 72 pounds (33 Kg).
• Built-in compressor freezer, stainless steel parts, and a non-removable bowl.
• Similar in design to the Musso Lussino, but bigger and heavier, and makes ice cream about twice as fast as all the other machines on this page.
• Made in Italy by Musso, distributed by Lello.

Machines using ice and salt:

These are the “old style” machines, but they still make good ice cream, and they’re much larger than all of the machines above.  These two in particular seem to be made of good quality parts like stainless steel and wood.  Of course, they’ll make a bit of a mess and you’ll need to buy ice and rock salt, but they should work well for large picnics outside, with or without electricity.

Rival F69204-X Electric White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer:

• Around $160.
• 4 Quarts, 16 pounds (7.5 Kg).
• Electric motor, stainless steel parts, and a wooden tub.
• Some reviewers say it’s loud.
• Also a hand crank version for about $125.
• Made in the USA.

Rival F69206-X Electric White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer:

• Around $170.
• 6 Quarts, 18 pounds (8 Kg).
• Electric motor, stainless steel parts, and a wooden tub.
• Some reviewers say it’s loud.
• Also a hand crank version for about $150.
• Made in the USA.

So get a machine and start making ice cream!

You’ve got options from the $50-70 freezer bowl types, to the $200+ compressor types, to the $160-170 ice and salt types.  Or even free, with nothing but a bowl and a fork!  :-)

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