Christine Seraclaset: 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.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: I'm Christine Seraclaset.

Kyra Blackwell: I'm Kyra Blackwell, and you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.

Christine Seraclaset: [music] Kyra, it is officially summer.

Kyra Blackwell: I feel like it's taken us a long time to get here.

Christine Seraclaset: a brutal winter, but now we are here in summer.

Kyra Blackwell: 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.

Christine Seraclaset: It's like a separate line item on my budget. Joking, not joking.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: 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 like frozen treat, and you'd be surprised how many recipes there are for, you know, things that aren't just your typical ice cream.

Kyra Blackwell: I love it. I also like to have some frozen treats, and you turned me on to something mind-blowing last year, which is to coat grapes in citric acid and a little sugar and freeze them. So, I've been doing that lately as well.

Christine Seraclaset: Really?

Kyra Blackwell: Really delicious.

Christine Seraclaset: 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.

Kyra Blackwell: 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 know, 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.

Christine Seraclaset: 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.

Kyra Blackwell: Ooh, this sounds divisive. And we are also going to hear a few special tips throughout the episode from some members of our kitchen team who know a lot about making frozen treats.

Christine Seraclaset: Sasha, the break. We'll be back with Marilyn Ong.

Kyra Blackwell: [music] 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 Ong: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Christine Seraclaset: It is so great to have you back. Marilyn, your team has tested a lot of gear for making frozen treats.

Marilyn Ong: Yes.

Christine Seraclaset: 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 Ong: True.

Christine Seraclaset: What is the argument for the DIY approach?

Marilyn Ong: That's such a good point, and we, you know, we do have picks for those frozen treats at the grocery store, too. Ice cream sandwiches and all that. And, you know, 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 fan of durian and you want to try making durian, you know, 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.

Christine Seraclaset: 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 you're eating.

Marilyn Ong: Totally. So, there's a really wide price range of gear for frozen treats. Our most expensive ice cream maker pick, for example, is $800.

Christine Seraclaset: [laughter] Yeah, that's extreme, but yeah.

Kyra Blackwell: 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 Ong: Yeah, you know, 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.

Kyra Blackwell: 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 like a discount home good store?

Marilyn Ong: 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, you know, we test for all of that. Everyday use stuff that makes them really easy.

Kyra Blackwell: Right. And they can be fun shapes.

Marilyn Ong: Yes. We have tested so many fun shapes.

Christine Seraclaset: So, which ones do we recommend?

Marilyn Ong: So, we have currently a Tovolo 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 like 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?

Kyra Blackwell: No, I did not have Otter Pops.

Marilyn Ong: Flavor Ices? No?

Kyra Blackwell: Ices.

Marilyn Ong: there we go. Okay.

Kyra Blackwell: So, that kind of like tube, we have silicone picks where you fill it with And this is the thing, right? You can just fill it with juice. Like 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 tubey thing, and you can squeeze it out and eat it. So, we have a pick from Chef'n 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 Seraclaset: 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 Ong: Totally.

Christine Seraclaset: have like a favorite recipe for ice pop at this point?

Marilyn Ong: 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 Lopez, like the coconut version of sweetened condensed milk. Yes, exactly. And then instead of coconut shreds, we put in chunks of mango.

Christine Seraclaset: Oh, yeah.

Marilyn Ong: 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.

Kyra Blackwell: Speaking my language.

Christine Seraclaset: Yeah, I'm going to be using that recipe like all summer long. I'm very excited.

Marilyn Ong: are going to love that. I'm definitely making that one. What about a mold for somebody who's classic conscious? Do you have a pick for that?

Christine Seraclaset: Okay, so we are so excited because this year we finally found a metal mold that we love.

Kyra Blackwell: Ooh.

Marilyn Ong: We've tested a lot of them over the years. You know, 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, you get you know, but this one the Popsicles just slide right out. You do need to rinse it under water for like a few seconds. So easy to use.

Christine Seraclaset: Wow. Does that come with its own sticks as well?

Marilyn Ong: can get a set. They do sell like metal sticks with little silicone holders at the end.

Kyra Blackwell: Wait, do Popsicle molds not usually come with their own sticks?

Marilyn Ong: All of our picks do. This metal pick it'll come with wooden Popsicle sticks 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.

Kyra Blackwell: And is this metal one like the classic shape?

Marilyn Ong: Yes. They sell other shapes, too, but we tested this is the brand is Eco Zooey. That's the brand that we finally felt really satisfied with.

Kyra Blackwell: Do you use your blender for any for anything that you're freezing?

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, I mean blenders are great. You know, there's the usual smoothies, slushies, milkshakes. You can definitely make like icy fun treats.

Christine Seraclaset: I think we actually have a recommendation from Wirecutter's senior staff writer Leslie Stockton a voice memo on a frozen treat that you only need a blender for. Let's listen to that.

Leslie Stockton: One of my favorite summertime treats is a watermelon slushy over boba. When Wirecutter you know, 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, you know, 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 know, you're having a party, you can swap out the boba for some tequila and have like 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.

Christine Seraclaset: [music] So, what else do we recommend besides ice pop molds and ice cream makers?

Marilyn Ong: 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 like amazingly strong motor, right? 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 like plain water and shave ice and then add syrups and stuff to it.

Kyra Blackwell: Oh, it's like bingsu, like that Korean dish.

Marilyn Ong: Yes, yes. Bingsu or tropping or what the different cultures of shaved ice. You can also freeze like a puck of milk and then when it shaves it, it's actually kind of like sheets of snow. So, if you've ever been at a bingsu place or something, they call it shaved snow. And then you add your condensed milk or mango, strawberry, delicious.

Christine Seraclaset: That sounds so good.

Marilyn Ong: really fun to experiment with and so easy to tailor ingredients to keep things dairy-free, to keep things lighter and more refreshing.

Christine Seraclaset: So, what if you don't have a KitchenAid?

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter] Have you tried some stuff at home?

Marilyn Ong: 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 Seraclaset: I have to ask about a different device, the Ninja Creami. I am served this constantly on Instagram. I have a lot of, you know, gym people, weightlifters, and stuff. And I think it's very popular with people who are trying to make, quote unquote, healthy treats. We've tried it. I don't think we recommend it. Tell me more.

Marilyn Ong: 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 kind of the opposite of ice cream makers. So usually, right, 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 from the motor, 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 it the drill mechanism, I mean, it's going hard, right? It's drilling into this frozen puck of material. And if it gets too close to the plastic container,

Kyra Blackwell: Is there any way to avoid that? Like Christine was was

Christine Seraclaset: I

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: have been, okay, I have been very curious about this. 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 out of it?

Marilyn Ong: has one. He loves it. Like

Christine Seraclaset: I did see recently you can buy metal canisters that fit into the Creami. Have you tried those?

Marilyn Ong: We have not, but that would be a good thing to try.

Kyra Blackwell: Why do you think this machine is so popular with people who are trying to eat healthier and make healthier treats?

Marilyn Ong: 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 kind of 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, like if you're adding, you know, I'm not in that world, but I'm guessing 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 like goes down easy without all the usual constraints that an ice cream maker requires in order to spin the ice cream into something yummy.

Kyra Blackwell: 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 slushy maker? I think we tested this, right?

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, one of our writers, Mackie, tested the Ninja slushy. We actually and we tested it in the test kitchen, too. We tried a few different things in it and we loved that thing. You know, like we didn't Ninja so tough. We don't always want to love their stuff. They're like all about making appliances that don't fit into the categories.

Christine Seraclaset: 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, right? Like frozen margaritas, that's like one thing people love to use these slushy machines for. You have to real I know. You have to really get the alcohol and the sugar right. So, you just 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, right? 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.

Kyra Blackwell: All of the Ninja products seem very big to me. Like, I feel like my kitchen can't accommodate these sized appliances. I don't have enough counter space.

Marilyn Ong: Yes, I'm picturing like the person with the basement theater and like a kitchenette in their basement and they're having people over like, "You [laughter] get a slushy, you get a slushy."

Christine Seraclaset: It's like part of their card.

Marilyn Ong: It's It's part of their personality.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Marilyn Ong: And like, how fun is that, right? Absolutely. But, yes, the machine is huge. But, yes, I was curious, too, if there's ways to make slushies with not taking up 2 sq ft of counter space. And I don't know if you all have seen on TikTok, there's like these little squeezy slushy cups.

Christine Seraclaset: I have This has not made it into my feed, but it probably will because you're talking about it.

Marilyn Ong: right? Now Now Now your phone knows. I'm going to pull it out cuz I actually brought some. So, there's a couple types. The one on on TikTok that's gotten really famous is this squeezy one.

Christine Seraclaset: Ooh. So, it's like a It's almost like a slushy like an ice pack 7-Eleven slushy shaped cup, but it's actually like frozen.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, so it's squeezy silicone on the outside. The whole cup squeezes.

Christine Seraclaset: Do you hear that?

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: Yeah, that's like an ASMR slushy cup.

Kyra Blackwell: I like it.

Christine Seraclaset: It's cool.

Marilyn Ong: So, you put stuff in it You pull it out of 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.

Christine Seraclaset: You squeeze it?

Marilyn Ong: Yes, you squeeze it.

Christine Seraclaset: There you go.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, do you want to try it? Yes. I have lemonade here and Dr. Pepper, what would you like?

Christine Seraclaset: Uh Dr. Pepper.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah.

Christine Seraclaset: Mhm. So, it's instant.

Marilyn Ong: So, it's It's pretty fast. The squeezy one will do it in a couple minutes.

Christine Seraclaset: Okay. It's called Frozen Magic, is the squeezy one. And then the other two that you have here are Zoku, and they're like hard on the outside. It's like hard plastic.

Marilyn Ong: these Zoku ones

Christine Seraclaset: Should I start squeezing this?

Marilyn Ong: Yeah. Cairo, would you like to try one of the Zoku ones? 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.

Christine Seraclaset: Dr. Pepper for you?

Kyra Blackwell: Dr. Pepper.

Christine Seraclaset: Dr. Pepper all around.

Marilyn Ong: These do take a minute, especially the Zoku ones because you're not squeezing the like frozen material into it. You're waiting for it to kind of crystallize on the side.

Christine Seraclaset: Oh, I see ice forming.

Marilyn Ong: Is it forming really?

Christine Seraclaset: Yeah, yep.

Marilyn Ong: So for these Zoku ones, you're going to start seeing like ice forming on the sides of the cup and you're just meant to scrape it down.

Christine Seraclaset: So do you do we recommend these on the site right now?

Marilyn Ong: Not yet. People are getting an inside track into

Christine Seraclaset: Yes.

Marilyn Ong: This is behind the scenes early advance.

Christine Seraclaset: turning into ice. This is so fascinating. My kids would love this.

Kyra Blackwell: Oh, yeah. How much are these guys?

Marilyn Ong: Okay, so the Frozen Magic Squeezy guy is $11.

Christine Seraclaset: Not bad.

Marilyn Ong: These Zoku ones are $23.

Christine Seraclaset: Mine is slushy.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, it's Dr. Pepper. It's Dr.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: [music] 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 headfirst into buying an 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 like a shaved ice deal, then you can get the attachment for the KitchenAid, too.

Kyra Blackwell: [music] After the break, we are going to dive deep into ice cream makers. Marilyn, [music] we're 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.

Christine Seraclaset: 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, Kira Murray Johnson, who loves making ice cream at home.

Kira Murray Johnson: 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 Seraclaset: [music] Marilyn, we cannot talk about frozen treats without getting into ice cream makers.

Marilyn Ong: Of course.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: 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? Like in this hierarchy of all these things that we've talked about, like who should be getting an ice cream maker?

Marilyn Ong: Right. A couple 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 like one compact machine that does it. You set it up, and it will just do the thing. And 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."

Christine Seraclaset: [laughter]

Marilyn Ong: And I have never watched them learn to build a skill faster in my life. Um, 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 and I love like a French style custardy ice cream, but I am not mad at the stuff that my kids have been making.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter] Also, is that the reason to get it? Like it's just fun to make your own ice cream? Like you said earlier like 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 like all the ingredients it ends up being kind of expensive. Here I am being like the Debbie Downer on ice cream.

Christine Seraclaset: [laughter]

Kyra Blackwell: But I'm just curious, I kind of felt like why would I make vanilla ice cream in my ice cream maker when I can buy great vanilla ice cream at the store, you know?

Marilyn Ong: 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, right? 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 Seraclaset: I think it's the first time it's come up on the show.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, it's shipped straight from Hawaii.

Kyra Blackwell: Yeah, they are shipped from Hawaii.

Marilyn Ong: 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 like ingredients flow through our homes, right? And 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 Seraclaset: Ooh, I like that. So it can be a way to kind of use up things that you maybe don't have a use for otherwise.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, just to have fun with the things that are flowing through your house.

Christine Seraclaset: [music] 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 get just get into it a little bit more. Like, how is it actually working? Cuz there's a couple different types of ice cream makers that we recommend. Like, 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 Ong: Yes.

Christine Seraclaset: So, explain the difference between those two.

Marilyn Ong: The 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 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, whippy, 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 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 kind of like the core of your refrigerator or your air conditioner, right? It's like circulating coolant to create like this coldness. And so, those machines, you plug them in, you You have to freeze them overnight, and they have a mechanism inside that will chill the bowl. Often, our kind of like medium-range compressor picks from Whynter, they're like two to $300, and they actually take a little bit longer than the Cuisinart ICE-21 to churn 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 a Cuisinart ICE-21. And they have different pros and cons, you know, I just mentioned our top pick, the Cuisinart ICE-21, is actually quite fast cuz you're pulling it out of the freezer, and it's just frozen from the get-go. But, you know, it can be a pain to store a freezer bowl in your freezer.

Christine Seraclaset: that's why I never make the ice cream cuz I don't have room in my freezer. And then I'm all I always forget, oh, you know, and then it's like I don't want to wait for it to freeze.

Marilyn Ong: 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.

Christine Seraclaset: So, if the top pick, which is $60, which is the Cuisinart, is faster than the upgrade pick, which is $800, why are you paying $800? [laughter]

Marilyn Ong: So, it's not faster than the $800 pick. It's it's a little bit faster than the two to $300 range machines that we recommend. I 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 kind of produce slightly different textures.

Kyra Blackwell: Give us the the breakdowns.

Marilyn Ong: So, the Cuisinart ICE-21 produces slightly denser, richer, chewier ice cream. We have two Whynter machines that we recommend. The 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 kind of 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 kind of choose what ice cream texture you're kind of gearing towards. But the benefit of the two 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.

Christine Seraclaset: I have a really dumb question.

Marilyn Ong: Go for it. No questions are No dumb questions.

Christine Seraclaset: I know it's really dumb, but I'm like every ice cream that I buy in the stores in a very specific container. What are you keeping the ice cream in at home?

Marilyn Ong: That's a great question. question.

Kyra Blackwell: I'm all ears. What do you keep the ice cream in?

Christine Seraclaset: [laughter]

Marilyn Ong: I honestly have ended up using a lot of quart contain- like takeout quart containers. It's just so easy.

Kyra Blackwell: Mhm.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, I sometimes when I have made ice cream, I'll put it into like a glass storage containers that we recommend on the site.

Christine Seraclaset: Yeah, I've totally done that, too.

Kyra Blackwell: [music] Okay, so we covered these two to $300 compressor units, these ones from Whynter.

Marilyn Ong: Yes.

Christine Seraclaset: Tell us who should be thinking about this $800 machine that we recommend.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah. So, do you all know this machine was in the Gilmore Girls?

Kyra Blackwell: No.

Christine Seraclaset: Oh my god, it's the gift that she gets after she cancels her wedding.

Marilyn Ong: It totally is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is.

Christine Seraclaset: called? It's called

Marilyn Ong: It's the Lello 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 Seraclaset: I love gelato. It's my favorite type of ice cream.

Marilyn Ong: Okay, so you have to get the $800 machine.

Christine Seraclaset: I do. [laughter]

Marilyn Ong: 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 Seraclaset: What?

Kyra Blackwell: That's wild.

Marilyn Ong: I know, but it is all stainless steel. It's really high-quality material and so it really it sounds kind of intense, but it really is very it wipes away really cleanly, really quickly.

Christine Seraclaset: So, who's this for? Is it for like the person who is just obsessive about making the best ice cream and they, you know, maybe want to cut down their $8 a scoop [laughter] habit down the street at the gelato store?

Marilyn Ong: 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. Like it just looks like a little time machine mid-century appliance. It's gorgeous. If you have $800 to drop on something completely frivolous,

Christine Seraclaset: and you probably have the counter space.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, or you know, a lot of people use it because they're starting small businesses. They're serving ice cream somewhere. It's a great excuse to get a really nice machine if you do have one.

Christine Seraclaset: that Lorelai gave it back. Spoiler alert.

Marilyn Ong: I know, right?

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter]

Christine Seraclaset: [music] Okay, we've got one more fun tip from senior staff writer Kathleen Squires. She's also the co-author of a book about ice cream sandwiches from the beloved brand Coolhaus, so she knows what she's talking about.

Kathleen Squires: Here are some tips from Coolhaus 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.

Christine Seraclaset: Okay, well, we've made it to our final question. So, Marilyn, before we wrap, what is the last thing that you bought that you've really loved?

Marilyn Ong: Okay. So, I've been like total used furniture obsessed lately and was at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and came across these wingback chairs and they were pretty grody. So grody, in fact, that they lowered the price to $25 each.

Christine Seraclaset: Nice.

Marilyn Ong: So, I took the deal and I was like, this is the perfect excuse to buy the Bissell Little Green.

Christine Seraclaset: Which it's an upholstery cleaner, right?

Marilyn Ong: Yes. It's one of our picks for like a portable upholstery carpet cleaner. You like spray it with water and solution and you like scrub scrub scrub and then you soak it soak up all the dirty water back up again. So, I took that and some Dawn dish soap. Yeah, you know, like chairs you've got like the head oils in the back where people are sitting and 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 like it's beautiful.

Christine Seraclaset: was so satisfying.

Marilyn Ong: So, that's awesome. I love it.

Christine Seraclaset: [music] Thank you so much, Marilyn.

Marilyn Ong: Yeah, thank you for having

Christine Seraclaset: to have you back on soon.

Marilyn Ong: Love it.

Christine Seraclaset: [music] Kyra, who knew there were so many things to make amazing frozen treats with?

Kyra Blackwell: I mean, we could go on and on and on. What was your takeaway?

Christine Seraclaset: one takeaway is that I really, really want one of these KitchenAid shaved ice makers, and I will [music] 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.

Kyra Blackwell: You could just get it now, Christine.

Christine Seraclaset: I could.

Kyra Blackwell: [laughter] 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.

Christine Seraclaset: Yeah. I love that. I really want to try her recipe for the mango mango ice pops, yeah.

Kyra Blackwell: Yeah, and then maybe maybe make it a little fun, throw a little alcohol in there, and then I have like a nice summer treat. So, that's my takeaway. I love that.

Christine Seraclaset: [music] 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 till next week. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.

Kyra Blackwell: Bye.

Christine Seraclaset: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie [music] Garin, and produced by Abigail Kiehl. Engineering support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman. [music] Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Ba [music] Etub, Catherine Anderson, Rowan Nemiasto, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief. I'm Kyra Blackwell.

Kyra Blackwell: I'm Christine Serclauset. Thanks for listening.

Marilyn Ong: 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, does the do the visuals of that It's a gross.

Christine Seraclaset: It is a gross. It is, right? It looks very anatomical.

Kyra Blackwell: looks like an orifice, honestly.

Christine Seraclaset: Yeah, sorry.