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My obsession with MacGyvering ice cream at home actually started not at home, but in a kindergarten classroom. “Ice cream in a bag” was a childhood rite of passage on par with the baking soda volcano: we were promised that after adding a few simple ingredients to a Ziploc bag, and shaking this concoction in another bag with ice and salt, we’d be rewarded with our very own homemade vanilla ice cream. This would be the first of many DIY ice cream attempts on my part over the next couple of decades, with varying degrees of success — particularly as someone with a pretty serious lactose sensitivity.
One-ingredient banana ice cream was tasty, if a little boring. The no-churn method was a freezer-burned disaster when using non-dairy cream. A cheap ice cream maker that I won’t name here broke almost instantly. It seemed as though my best options were to cough up serious cash for a top-of-the-line machine, or else just purchase my dairy-free frozen treats from the grocery store or local scoop shops. (I chose the latter.)
But my childhood intrigue reemerged recently when I suddenly noticed that my entire TikTok FYP was dominated with videos reviewing something called the Ninja CREAMi—a countertop device that claims that it can “turn almost anything into ice cream”.
Influencer after influencer breathlessly showed the CREAMi transform a variety of frozen bases — often with healthy-doctored ingredients like protein powder and oat milk — into scoopable pints of ice cream. In fact, the search “Ninja Creami” has more than 617 million video views on TikTok to date. True to viral canon, the CREAMi promptly sold out everywhere. (At press time, the original 11-in-1 Deluxe CREAMi is only available through secondhand sellers on Ebay and Mercari, which we wouldn’t recommend.)
For those who are eager to take advantage of the CREAMi during the summer months, however, there is a silver lining: Its newer, counterspace-saving counterpart, the 7-in-1 Breeze. While it doesn’t quite have all the same bells and whistles as the Deluxe, the smaller capacity was actually a better fit for my cozy kitchen — and perhaps most importantly, it happens to be in stock.
We like
- Delivers store-worthy ice cream texture with the right recipe
- Comes with seven settings including gelato, sorbet, and smoothie
- Mix-in setting allows for endless customizations
- Works well with non-dairy bases (though there’s a bit of a learning curve)
We don't like
- Noisy
- Getting the right texture takes a little trial-and-error, and often comes out crumbly at first
- You have to wait 24 hours for your base to freeze
Un-Boxing Day
My CREAMi Breeze arrived with a thick booklet of recipe ideas, as well as one specific formula the Ninja team recommends for the creamiest possible result: A base that consists of cream cheese, heavy cream, sugar, and milk. That said, the box said it loudly: “Turn almost anything into ice cream!” and dairy-free subs like coconut cream and oat milk were also encouraged.
So for my first side-by-side test, I decided to do one base by the book, and another that went a little more rogue. The first was a combo of vegan cream cheese, coconut cream, almond milk, and fresh strawberries. The other would be my favorite morning smoothie, consisting of Ritual’s Essential Protein, a medjool date, and oat milk.
After prepping my bases and freezing them overnight — a non-negotiable, unfortunately — I decided to start with the strawberry ice cream first, since it was closest to Ninja’s recommended recipe. As I screwed on the base pint to the machine and turned it on, I was struck by a few things. One: how straightforward it was to select a feature and start churning. Two: how noisy it was. I blend up a smoothie every morning for breakfast next to two snoozing dogs, but the CREAMi sent one running to the bedroom and the other into a barking frenzy.
Thankfully, the third impression I had of the machine itself was how quickly it completed a cycle. Within a minute or two, the CREAMi shut off, and I eagerly unscrewed the pint to find…
Drumroll Please…
…Dippin’ Dots. That’s the best way I can describe the texture of my first attempt. It was powdery and almost dry, not unlike the space-y frozen treat I used to buy from many a mall food court. Some frantic TikTok searching revealed that this wasn’t an uncommon result, and that adding a few tablespoons of liquid should solve for it. Sure enough, after adding a splash of almond milk (and some fresh strawberries) and re-churning the mixture, I was pleasantly surprised by how well my spoon moved through my very first batch of CREAMi ice cream.
Next up was my protein base — which I admittedly didn’t have high hopes for after seeing that the recommended base wasn’t quite as foolproof as I thought. I was right to be skeptical: This one was also powdery after the first churn, and just plain icy after adding some milk. It wasn’t until I decided to ditch any semblance of healthiness and add some raw vegan cookie dough that it became creamy, and absolutely delicious. The trick to that ice cream texture, I soon realized, is adding something that functions really well as a binder: hence the need for cream cheese in the original base. I’ve seen TikTokers add sugar-free Jello packets to their lighter CREAMis, but that’s not quite my thing, so I guess more experimentation is in order. (Maybe some overripe bananas?)
My new favorite party trick
I’ll gladly continue to experiment if it means I can still enjoy homemade ice cream in less than five minutes (give or take 24 hours), but one of the things I’m most excited to use the CREAMi for is crafting frozen drinks that aren’t watered down by ice. As I gear up to play hostess this summer, I can see myself whipping up frozen margaritas, espresso martinis, and aperol spritzes. A couple of frozen cocktail test runs have indicated that the CREAMi does this very well.
There is certainly an argument to be made that if you’re eager to make homemade ice cream, perhaps the $200 CREAMi Breeze price tag would be better spent towards an actual ice cream maker. But if you’re looking for a ultra-quick, countertop solution with features that go beyond just scoopable ice cream, then I’d say the Breeze is a worthy investment. I’m certainly looking forward to a summer of frozen concoctions — even with a little trial-and-error.
Looking for more frozen treat ideas (without the effort)? Check out our roundup of the best ice cream brands out there right now.
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