Ninja CREAMi Breeze Ice Cream & Frozen Dessert Maker

Rosa_Damascena

Posting here as us OSers are the most likely to make HM ice cream.

Anyone who has seen the deals to be had on the main site will have seen this one. The reason I am going down the HM route is because I love ice cream but the stuff in the shops is ultra-processed and really is full of rubbish. I would rather get away with a cream and fruit base with no stabilisers etc. Its also now so expensive that at the offer price, ice-cream maths tells me I would have to use it about 50 times to break even. So once a fortnight over the 2 years the item is guaranteed for,

I've made both ice cream and frozen yoghurt recently and although it tastes good, I'm not fond of the crystal texture. The review here suggests that this product has the edge on a creamy texture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl21HUtZqVU&ab_channel=Joe%27sPhenomenal .

What I cannot get out of my head is this....ultimately it is just a mixer? For which £120 is not cheap. I don't enjoy decanting semi-frozen ice cream from the freezer, beating the crystals out again and still ending up with a final result with crystals that needs to be defrosted for a while before eating. But then again I don't want to waste £120 either.

I'd like some advice from seasoned HM ice cream makers: are machines actually superior to manual methods?

carly

I have an ice cream maker, although not the one you mentioned.  It churns the mixture as it freezes,      ( no need to pre freeze the bowl )     preventing the formation of ice crystals and the resulting icecream is a nicer texture than just freezing and beating the mixture manually. Mine is large and years old and no longer available but there are many others out there. Lakeland used to sell one...cuisinart too.  I bought mine to avoid all the additives in commercial ice cream. Another alternative is to use condensed milk in the recipe.... it somehow helps to reduce ice crystals. Nigella has a no beat coffee icecream recipe ( google) using this method which is great. I have omitted the coffee and added other flavourings, vanilla, mint, fruit etc. Might be worth a try before purchasing a machine.

pumpkin89

IMO - yes, it is definitely worth buying a machine vs doing it manually.  But I am not convinced you need to spend £120.  I haven't used the Ninja myself - it might be great - but I use this one (£30) which works brilliantly.  The design also makes it easy to add "mix ins" (chocolate chips etc.) if that's your thing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James-Delicious-Detachable-Magazine/dp/B07B12546L/ref=asc_df_B003UFNJ1Y/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=218591700132&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1486059157346125887&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006886&hvtargid=pla-421506629250&th=1

Rosa_Damascena

carly said:

I have an ice cream maker, although not the one you mentioned.  It churns the mixture as it freezes,      ( no need to pre freeze the bowl )     preventing the formation of ice crystals and the resulting icecream is a nicer texture than just freezing and beating the mixture manually. Mine is large and years old and no longer available but there are many others out there. Lakeland used to sell one...cuisinart too.  I bought mine to avoid all the additives in commercial ice cream. Another alternative is to use condensed milk in the recipe.... it somehow helps to reduce ice crystals. Nigella has a no beat coffee icecream recipe ( google) using this method which is great. I have omitted the coffee and added other flavourings, vanilla, mint, fruit etc. Might be worth a try before purchasing a machine.

That's the key thing I wasn't sure of, do ice-cream makers freeze as they beat? If so the £35 option sounds much more me - thanks @pumpkin89 !

The mango ice-cream I make is just 3 ingredients: ripe mango, condensed milk and double cream. I use less of the condensed milk so its not wildly sweet, but crystals are still evident. I'll give the Nigella recipe a go, coffee ice cream is just my thing! I did pick up her tip before about alcohol - in another recipe she indicated that less is more otherwise it will never freeze - but hers doesn't get crystally its bound to have something to do with the Kitchen Aid. I'll be liberal with the Tia Maria and hazelnut topping .

Rosa_Damascena

pumpkin89 said:

IMO - yes, it is definitely worth buying a machine vs doing it manually.  But I am not convinced you need to spend £120.  I haven't used the Ninja myself - it might be great - but I use this one (£30) which works brilliantly.  The design also makes it easy to add "mix ins" (chocolate chips etc.) if that's your thing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James-Delicious-Detachable-Magazine/dp/B07B12546L/ref=asc_df_B003UFNJ1Y/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=218591700132&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1486059157346125887&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006886&hvtargid=pla-421506629250&th=1

I see the bowl needs pre-freezing - indicating its not the machine that does the freezing, its the insulated bowl?

Am looking forward to having lots of space in my freezer as I rid it of all the UPFs (pizza, savoury bites etc).

thriftwizard

I have one like @carly's, found for £35 in a charity shop, complete with extra bowls & paddles (would originally have been close to £400 new) and it's brilliant, though it does take up a fair bit of counter-space, hence it lives in the utility room. Not only does it make fabulous & fairly virtuous ice cream (though not in large quantities, 600 ml max, but I can always do two bowls) it also gives us an extra, rather wonderful, way to make the best of gluts & bargains. Not that, say, raspberry sorbet is going to keep for long! And some of the recipes we've found have been fabulous - toffee apple ice cream, made with tart apples, is just gorgeous! Pineapple & apricot, from a Lidls £1.50 box, was unexpectedly delightful, and strawberry yogurt too... apparently most of the beneficial bacteria do survive being frozen, for a couple of weeks, at least. When it finally dies, I won't hesitate to replace it, though I'm not by & large a gadget-hound. But this has proven its worth time & again.

Floss

Rosa_Damascena said:

The mango ice-cream I make is just 3 ingredients: ripe mango, condensed milk and double cream. 

My icecream recipe is whipped-up whipping cream mixed with condensed milk, plus vanilla paste / homemade fruit coulis / caramel sauce & broken brandy snaps / mint extract & grated chocolate... No crystals, just scrummy icecream.

Floss

thriftwizard said:

 ... Not only does it make fabulous & fairly virtuous ice cream (though not in large quantities, 600 ml max, but I can always do two bowls) it also gives us an extra, rather wonderful, way to make the best of gluts & bargains...

My ex-husband has one of those - I can recommend elderflower sorbet, strawberry sorbet, peach melba icecream (Lidl cheap peaches with raspberry coulis ripple) and rhubarb & ginger icecream!

goldfinches

I saw the deal on the main site and looked at it but decided against because you have to freeze the bowl before churning.
I currently have the bowl attachment for my kitchen aid stand mixer and hardly use it because it takes up so much space in the freezer so I've been considering selling it and buying a machine that does the whole job without all the pre-freezing.
I've also made several of the no-churn recipes and found them good especially the ones where you whip the cream/condensed milk mixture before freezing. I think it would be worth your while giving those a go and experimenting with various additions like alcohol and liquid glucose to see whether you can eliminate the crystal texture. These two recipes gave me an especially smooth and creamy result Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe with Blackberry | olivemagazine and Best No Churn Lemon Ice Cream Recipe - How to Make Lemon Ice Cream (food52.com)

Rosa_Damascena

goldfinches said:

I saw the deal on the main site and looked at it but decided against because you have to freeze the bowl before churning.
I currently have the bowl attachment for my kitchen aid stand mixer and hardly use it because it takes up so much space in the freezer so I've been considering selling it and buying a machine that does the whole job without all the pre-freezing.
I've also made several of the no-churn recipes and found them good especially the ones where you whip the cream/condensed milk mixture before freezing. I think it would be worth your while giving those a go and experimenting with various additions like alcohol and liquid glucose to see whether you can eliminate the crystal texture. These two recipes gave me an especially smooth and creamy result Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe with Blackberry | olivemagazine and Best No Churn Lemon Ice Cream Recipe - How to Make Lemon Ice Cream (food52.com)

Put the cream, condensed milk and vanilla in a bowl and beat with electric beaters until softly whipped.

When I have made mango ice-cream, I have whipped the double cream quite stiff and then folded in the rest of the ingredients. The condensed milk doesn't get a beating until the concoction has been frozen for a good 4 hours and crystals still appear in the finished product.

Maybe it is just a case of experimenting as you have suggested, but I am now convinced that spending £120 + additional on extra bowls is not going to buy me any happiness. I will get some liquid glucose this evening.

goldfinches

Thinking about it some more, both the recipes I linked to are ones where you add a small amount of very highly flavoured juice to your cream/condensed milk/milk mixture so I think the ratio of water based ingredient to milk based one might be worth considering. If you look at this Nigella recipe for Bitter Orange Ice Cream you can see why I've come up with this theory. Perhaps it would be worth pureeing your mango and then reducing it in a pan before adding it to your mixture. Other things that occur to me are that you could add lime juice, lime zest and/or chilli or even amchur to the puree as well and then ripple it through rather than mix it in completely.