Cuisinart Frost Fusion review: quick churning for delicious frozen treats – but is it better than Ninja?

Ice cream machines have completely taken over the appliance world. Older and more traditional ice cream makers used to take hours if not days to make ice cream and sorbets, but today’s models are much quicker, efficient and more versatile.

Case in point: the Cuisinart Frost Fusion. Cuisinart launched the Frost Fusion earlier this summer, a 6-in-1 device that churns and freezes soft serve, ice cream, slushies and more inside the machine in just 25 minutes. Rivalling the likes of Ninja – whose Creami ice cream maker is a fan favourite on TikTok – I tested the Cuisinart Frost Fusion for over a month to see how it measured up.

Cuisinart Frost Fusion review: price and availability

The Cuisinart Frost Fusion is priced at £299.99 and available to buy at Cuisinart and select retailers like Amazon. As of writing, it’s not yet available in the US but the Cuisinart US site has plenty of ice cream machines available.

The Cuisinart Frost Fusion comes with the main machine which has an integrated compressor and LED display, a large handle that attaches to the front and a star tip for dispensing. It comes assembled so it doesn’t require much manual assistance after you unbox it.

Cuisinart Frost Fusion review: design and features

The Cuisinart Frost Fusion is a 6-in-1 ‘frozen treat’ machine that makes soft serve, ice cream, sorbet, slushies, frappes and frozen cocktails. After whisking your ingredients together, the Cuisinart Frost Fusion mixes, churns and freezes inside the machine so you don’t have to pre-freeze your mixture or wait for hours while it makes frozen desserts or drinks.

Its integrated compressor uses chill technology and a cooling barrel to freeze and churn your mixtures. The Cuisinart Frost Fusion can make ice cream in as little as 25 minutes and its dispenser handle presses down to release your ice cream and other treats. The firmness level can be adjusted depending on your preferences.

The six programmes can be selected via the LED touchscreen. It displays cute graphics for each setting, and has a self-cleaning function. The Cuisinart Frost Fusion also has a keep cool function that keeps everything inside cold for up to 2 hours for ice cream and 12 hours for frozen drinks.

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Cuisinart Frost Fusion review: performance

Unlike older ice cream machines, the Cuisinart Frost Fusion doesn’t require you to pre-freeze your mixture. Following the recipes in the instructions manual, I quickly made the ice cream and soft serve mixes and left it in the fridge until I wanted to make the treats.

After switching the Cuisinart Frost Fusion on, it takes a couple minutes to prepare which is displayed on the screen with flashing bars. I then poured my mixture into the hole at the top of the machine before selecting the programme. The Cuisinart Frost Fusion got started right away and didn’t make too much noise while churning. When it was done, the Cuisinart Frost Fusion beeped quietly before activating the keep cool function.

I was surprised by how quickly the Cuisinart Frost Fusion made ice cream, soft serve and sorbets. It took around 25 minutes and worked nicely with dairy and non-dairy ingredients. While most of my experiments were tasty and had the perfect consistency, I found that the Cuisinart Frost Fusion had issues if you didn’t stick to exact measurements.

For example, I made coffee soft serve and didn’t have the full measurements for some ingredients so I made adjustments to make a smaller quantity of ice cream. The Cuisinart Frost Fusion took well over 25 minutes to churn the mixture and completely frozen over so I couldn’t get the soft serve out without scooping it out from the mixing compressor.

This was quite a big flaw, as it meant I had to make big batches every time or the Cuisinart Frost Fusion got jammed. Despite its self-clean function, I found the Cuisinart Frost Fusion tricky to clean as everything is compactly designed and not the easiest to take apart.

I enjoyed the design and functionality of the Cuisinart Frost Fusion, especially the handle. It felt like making and dispensing traditional Mr Whippy-style ice cream and the churning part is a little transparent so you can see your mixtures churning which was fun to watch. It’s not a small machine by any means, and took up a lot of space in my kitchen – on the counter and in cupboards.

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Cuisinart Frost Fusion review: verdict

If you love ice cream and other frozen treats, the Cuisinart Frost Fusion is a definite must-have. I really enjoyed experimenting with it and found its soft serve function to be the best setting from the device. Despite its chunky, tall size, the Cuisinart Frost Fusion is designed beautifully and has a great touchscreen display.

The main issue I had with the Cuisinart Frost Fusion was its overfreezing and jamming if you wanted to make less than the full amount of ice cream or soft serve. It typically churned extremely quickly and you had treats ready in just 25 minutes, but it did struggle if you didn’t want to make huge batches.

At £300, the Cuisinart Frost Fusion is quite pricey but if you enjoy making a lot of ice cream, it’s a worthwhile purchase. It massively sets itself apart from other ice cream makers as it doesn’t require any pre-freezing or hours long churning sessions, so it’s easily the quickest and most effective ice cream maker I’ve ever tried – as long as you get the quantities right, that is.

Cuisinart Frost Fusion review: alternatives to consider

The Cuisinart Frost Fusion is somewhat of an anomaly within the ice cream maker world as it’s extremely quick and doesn’t take hours to freeze or churn. The only appliance that’s similar to the Cuisinart Frost Fusion is the Ninja SLUSHi which is more of a slushie machine, or the Ninja Swirl, a soft serve maker.