Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker Review 2023

In my widest tested review of ice cream makersTHE Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker impressed me as the best high-end model on the market. Ahead, learn more about this next-level ice cream maker and why I loved it so much.

The homemade ice cream is a treat, period. But after testing seven different ice cream makers over the course of 10 days, I found that Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker produced ice cream that rivaled the best scoops I’ve eaten at my favorite ice cream parlors across the country.

The Breville is a compressor-style ice cream maker, meaning it has a built-in motor that simultaneously cools and turns liquid bases into ice cream, sorbet, gelato, or frozen yogurt. In comparison, the Cuisinart Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker (the model I picked as the best ice cream maker overall) is a box-style ice cream maker that requires the mixing bowl to be frozen for 16-24 hours. before you can do that. to be used. I appreciated that the Breville was ready to go whenever the ice cream craving struck.

Thanks to the built-in compressor, Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker is bigger, commanding a significant amount of counter space and storage. It’s also, like all the compressor ice cream makers I’ve tried, expensive, at just under $500. But it’s a great match for anyone who wants to up their ice cream making experience and has a little room to spare in the kitchen. Ahead, find my full Breville ice cream maker review, with details on the features I found most exciting and impressive.

Breville Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker Review

Superior ice cream, every time

Whenever I test out a new device, I like to go with an open mind. I do my research, of course, but I try not to have any preconceived ideas about the performance of any particular product. In the case of Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker, that meant ignoring rave reviews from customers on Amazon and also its inclusion in other “best of” lists. In the end, however, the Breville didn’t need any pre-hype.

Batch after batch consistently turned out 1.1 liters (just over 2 pints) of top-tier ice cream. Right out of the machine, the vanilla and cookie-and-cream recipes I tested were rich and luscious — the texture of a soft, dense serve. Even the vegan ice cream, made with oat milk and coconut cream, was thick and creamy. The ice cream maker paddle stirred the bases evenly, so there were no icy spots or not quite blended sections. And after transferring the ice cream tubs and letting them cool a bit more in the freezer, they became as perfect as any scoop I’ve tried.

Friendly for beginners, customizable for connoisseurs

Breville The Smart Scoop is a compressor-style ice cream maker, which means it has a built-in motor that cools the base of the ice cream as it spins. Unlike a canister-style ice cream maker, which requires up to 24 hours of pre-freezing, I just poured in my ice cream base and the machine did the rest. But I still found it to be particularly user-friendly. Unlike the Lello 4080 Musso Lussino, another high-end compressor-style ice cream maker I tested, the mixing bowl was removable, which made transferring ice cream into the bowls (and also cleaning) much easier.

Breville The Smart Scoop was also the only ice cream maker I tried that gave an indication of when the ice cream was finished. (The batches I tried were ready in 30-45 minutes.) With the other models, it was a bit of a guessing game—when the ice cream seemed thick, I turned off the motor. But the Breville gave a flick to indicate when it was time to incorporate mixes, and another when the ice cream had reached its optimum consistency. As a newbie to ice cream making, I found these dings very reassuring. For more experienced ice cream makers, a button on the control panel lets you customize your desired ice cream texture, from a softer consistency for frozen yogurt to harder, easier-to-grab ice cream.

A machine worth the price and counter space

Two things to consider before buying a Breville The Smart Scoop ice cream maker are price and size – both are great. At nearly $500, it’s significantly more expensive than Cuisinart frozen yogurt, ice cream, and sorbet, which was the other ice cream maker that topped the list of best ice cream makers. And thanks to the built-in compressor motor, the Breville is also a little bigger, weighing in at 30 pounds.

For home cooks who don’t plan on making ice cream very often and people working in small kitchens with limited storage space, Breville The Smart Scoop might be more ice cream maker than you need. But for ice cream connoisseurs or anyone hoping to take their homemade ice cream game to the next level, it’s absolutely worth both the price and the counter space.

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How it works Breville The Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker Compare?

Of the seven ice cream makers I tested for the best, three were compressor-type machines that had built-in motors to freeze the liquid ice cream base as it spun. The Breville established itself almost immediately as the best of these three. The Whynter Upright automatic ice cream maker was smaller and cheaper than the Breville, but the ice cream it produced was disappointing in one batch and freezing in another.

The Lello 4080 Musso Lussino, which was both the most expensive and largest compressor-style ice cream maker I tried, turned out to be quality ice cream comparable to the Breville The Smart Scoop. But there were downsides, including that it worked almost too efficiently! I waited a minute too long to add mixes to my batch of cookies and cream, only to find that the ice cream was so cold and thick that the paddle couldn’t spin through it to incorporate the chopped cookies. The Breville, on the other hand, indicated exactly when to add mix-ins. The Lello’s mixing bowl was also not removable, which made scooping out the finished ice cream and cleaning it more difficult. While I loved the ice cream of both models, the Breville was the clear winner in my testing.

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How I tested the ice cream makers

It took a lot of ice cream to determine which of the seven ice cream makers I tested was the best. In all, I tested 21 batches of dairy and vegan ice cream, going through 5 liters of milk, 7 liters of heavy cream, 3.5 liters of oat milk and almost 3 dozen eggs. Each machine produced a batch of American-style vanilla ice cream (made with a base of milk and cream), French cookies, and ice cream (made with a base of cream and tempered egg yolk , and strung with chopped sandwich cookies) and vegan chocolate ice cream (made with oat milk and coconut cream). The ice cream makers that topped my list were user-friendly, with removable mixing bowls and simple control panels. Test after test, Breville The Smart Scoop was a delight to use, and the ice cream that came out of it ranked number one.

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My knowledge

I’ve been a lifelong ice cream obsessive who would choose a hot fudge sundae or a double decker cone over any other dessert. In addition to my personal love of ice cream, I am a food writer whose writings and recipes have appeared in Gastronomy & Wines, Enjoy your food, THE Washington Post, New York magazine And Food52. I’ve also authored seven cookbooks, none of which focus specifically on ice cream, but there’s always the next book! For Forbes Vetted, I regularly review and test home appliances, including rice cookers, toaster ovens, and cold juicers.