Our Favorite Ice Cream Maker Is Easy Enough for Kids to Use

The other picks in Wirecutter’s ice cream maker guide are large, heavy, park-’em-on-the-counter machines. This Cuisinart model, on the other hand, is easy to tuck away in a cupboard and to take back out when you’re ready to churn a batch.

Miles, our 10-year-old, who is now this machine’s main power user in our family, says that its relatively small size is really important—especially when he absolutely must churn the ice cream immediately, but we’re using up all the counter space on some silly task like prepping dinner. He says, “It’s easy to carry around, so I can use it in different places in the kitchen.”

I vaguely remember walking our kids through the Cuisinart ICE-21’s operating instructions, which basically meant pointing out how the simple parts—the base, the bowl, the paddle, and the lid—fit together and showing them the on/off switch.

Before long, I’d stumble into the kitchen first thing in the morning, and the kids would be nonchalantly churning their first batch of the day, like little 21st-century homesteaders.

And for all the fanciness of Wirecutter’s other ice cream maker picks, the Cuisinart model won out on speed. According to staff writer Mace Dent Johnson, this ice cream maker consistently churned batches of ice cream in about half the time the compressor models took.

Miles agrees: “It’s fast. 15 to 20 minutes, maybe.” When I asked him why that’s so important, he said, “So you can eat it sooner.” Duh.

As the machine churns, the open top lets you watch the magic happen. “It’s cool and interesting to watch how it works,” Miles says. “The thing scrapes the ice cream off the edges, and more stuff gets stuck on the edge, and it scrapes it off, and it mixes air in, and that’s cool.”

Here’s the one bummer: Unlike Wirecutter’s other ice cream maker picks, which are all compressor-style machines, the Cuisinart model uses an insulated bowl. The bowl is lined with a liquid that, when frozen, stays chilly and freezes the ice cream as the bowl turns and the paddle scrapes its sides.

The bowl requires about 16 to 24 hours to fully freeze (you’ll know it’s ready when you shake the bowl and hear zero sloshing), which can put a damper on impromptu ice cream making.

We often just store our bowl in the freezer, so it’s always ready when the urge to churn strikes. (The manual says this is fine to do.)

With a 1.5-quart capacity, the Cuisinart ICE-21 makes a smallish batch. Miles definitely feels its limits: “Yeah, you can’t make really big batches. Our batches are okay size, but as a family of five, we go through them quite quickly.” Quite.

Some folks combat that by purchasing an extra freezer bowl, which allows you to make back-to-back batches without waiting another 16 to 24 hours for your bowl to freeze.

The Cuisinart ICE-21’s simple parts are removable and easy to clean. The manual says to wash everything in warm, soapy water, but we’ve run the plastic paddle and lid through our dishwasher multiple times, and they’re holding up fine after about a year.

But the insulated bowl should never, ever go in the dishwasher. And you should never store your frozen dessert in the bowl for longer than 30 minutes.

Usually, when it’s done churning to soft-serve consistency, we remove the ice cream from the bowl (using a silicone or wooden spatula) and let the bowl sit and thaw a bit before hand-washing it with soap and water.

Miles thinks this cleanup task is the best. “It’s fun taking the ice cream out because you get to scrape the ice cream off the sides and eat it.”

Like most Cuisinart appliances, this ice cream maker also comes with an impressive three-year warranty. As long as you treat the bowl with care, this machine should last years.

This article was edited by Ben Frumin and Marguerite Preston.