Cooks Professional ice cream maker review

Available from Cooks Professional (£119.99)

Read our full review of the best ice cream makers

Built-in freezer ice cream machines are renowned for their heaviness, so the Cooks Professional maker came as something of a surprise – it’s light enough to move easily around the kitchen.

The machine is made from sturdy plastic, as is the large lid, which houses the control panel offering soft or hard ice cream settings and automated cooling. There’s also a heating mode, automated programme and separate container to make yogurt.

Assembly is straightforward with everything clicking neatly into place. Less user-friendly are the controls – the symbols are difficult to see, and selecting a setting is frustrating. With time, though, we felt that would become easier.

Of all the models in our ice cream maker test, the Cooks Professional takes the longest time to churn ice cream. Ours took the full two hours for firm ice cream to be ready. During the first hour little seemed to change, but then, bit by bit, the cream swelled and at two hours, hey presto! There was just over a litre of lovely, semi-hard ice cream (this firmed up more in the freezer). This doesn’t suit anyone wanting ice cream in a hurry, and was, on average, an hour and a half longer than the other machines we tried.

However, it is a reasonable price for a built-in machine with automatic programming, which may well compensate for the slow churning.

Both the hard and soft ice cream was good. They held up well in the freezer at 24 and 48 hours, and softened ready to eat in around 10 minutes. Cleaning is quick and easy, and though the shiny black plastic does show finger marks, these wipe away in a flash.

If you can wait two hours for a bowl of homemade ice cream, and you want a built-in model, this is a great value machine making excellent ice cream. Plus, the heating option of homemade yogurt (this takes 8 hours but can be left working overnight) is a real bonus.

Available from Cooks Professional (£119.99)

Cooks Professional ice cream maker specifications:
Type: built-in freezer
Capacity: 1.2 litre
Size: 34 x 27 x 26 cm
Noise: quiet
Settings: touch screen in the lid
Functions: makes hard or soft ice cream, yogurt, sorbet
Lid: transparent
Guarantee: two years
Cleaning: paddles and lid dishwasher safe
Instruction manual: yes
Recipes: yes

Read our full review of the best ice cream makers

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This review was last updated in May 2020. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability, please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.

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