With ice cream, we got to a soft-serve-like consistency in 36 minutes, and then we tossed in the Oreo crumbles to mix in thoroughly in about 30 seconds. Both test batches firmed up to a more scoopable texture after a couple hours in the freezer, though freezing overnight produced some significant ice crystals. Looking for more outdoor activities for kids and things to do in the summer? Your toddler, preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and elementary age kids will love these fun ideas to keep them busy all summer long: Compressor ice cream makers operate like tiny freezers. Using the same method as a home freezer or air conditioner, they cool themselves down, making ice cream with no long pre-chilling required. These machines typically have more features, with settings for making gelato, sorbet, and other frozen treats. Some models have advanced timers to remind you when to add mix-ins or keep-cold features that will keep the ice cream chilled for a few hours before serving. (A soft serve machine is a type of compressor ice cream maker, set at just the right temperature to maintain a flowing, sorta-solid, sorta-liquid texture.) With both sorbet and ice cream, the Creami Deluxe produced a firm and consistently textured product, with no ice crystals or un-spun base built up in the corners of the container. Both were ready to eat and perfect straight out of the machine. After two hours of re-freezing, the ice cream maintained its texture exactly, and the sorbet was still pretty good—a bit denser than we'd like, with a few ice crystals on top.

We were honestly blown away by the sorbet this thing made. The recipe we used is vegan, with only strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and salt, but the scraping and mixing technique made for a light but creamy texture that was far better than we expected. The constant motion prevents ice crystals from forming while working in a lot of air, and the resulting sorbet melts on the tongue like cotton candy. For ice cream, adding mix-ins in the last few seconds of the process is easy, the pieces work in evenly, and you have lots of control over how much you chop things into smaller bits. Cleanup is also really easy, thanks to a high lip that keeps everything fairly well-contained. The pan isn't dishwasher-safe, but washing by hand is quite simple. Look, you're not going to mistake the results of the Yonanas for "real" dairy ice cream—our test batch had chunks of fruit in it and kind of a gooey texture—but it makes a healthier dessert that could be great for ice cream-loving kids. The sweetness level depends entirely on the fruit you use, so we'd aim for overripe over underripe. (The manual recommends "cheetah-spotted" bananas.)

If you’re ready to get serious about making ice cream, the Smart Scoop offers lots of functionality for its steep price tag. Most importantly, it has its own compressor—just like a full-size freezer or air conditioner—and chills the bowl while it churns. After the ice cream is done, it'll even hold it at the perfect scooping temperature for up to three hours. You can pre-freeze the bowl just like with other models, but you can also set the machine to chill the bowl for you while you prepare your ice cream or sorbet base. You also don't have to worry about refreezing the bowl between batches, which is a boon as the machine can only make about a quart at a time, and a batch can take nearly an hour to freeze. Polypropylene is a thermoplastic polymer that offers many different advantages which makes it ideal for a wide variety of different products and uses, from high heat to cold and more. Exploding Watermelon– science experiment that explores potential and kinetic energy with a big WOW moment! I always recommend mastering vanilla ice cream before moving on to more complicated flavors," says Ellen Coatney, creator and owner of Fifth Scoop, a plant-based ice cream brand based in Madison, Wisconsin. "This helps you get the technique down without worrying about your chocolate breaking or your fruit swirl getting icy. Once you're confident, you can mix and churn a delicious vanilla ice cream, start adding some basic mix-ins—cookie pieces or chocolate chips are easy ones to start with—and then you can get more creative."

Most ice cream makers can freeze a batch in an hour or less—if you don't count the full day the bowl has to chill beforehand. (Yes, you could keep the bowl in the freezer, but it takes up a lot of space.) The Cuisinart ICE-100 has an onboard compressor, which means there's no pre-freezing required. It lets you make ice cream on a whim whenever you'd like, but the tradeoff is that compressor ice cream makers are quite a bit more expensive than units with a basic motor and a freezable bowl.It works essentially like a food processor: You load the fruit into the top and push it down with a plunger, and then pulverized frozen pulp comes out directly into the serving bowl. Using a combination of bananas and strawberries, we got a treat that was creamy and scoopable.