CHOICE verdict
The Ninja Swirl by Creami soft serve dispenser's ability to swirl out ice cream, sorbet, thick shakes, frozen yoghurt, gelato and fruit whips makes it a lot of fun. It's easy to use and works well, too. In our testing, it took only 1-6 minutes to churn a frozen recipe into a scoopable or swirly dessert. Is it worth $550? That depends on how much you’ll use it, and how important the ability to make soft serve is to you (as you can buy good standard ice cream machines for less). It’s large and awkward to store, has lots of parts to clean, can be very noisy and mix-ins need to be put in manually as there’s no chute. It’s largely a novelty appliance, and the fun might wear off quickly when you’re left with all the cleaning up.
Price: $550
Contact: www.ninjakitchen.com.au
Ninja has become known for their innovation in the kitchen. From blenders and food processors to air fryers and multi-cookers, the brand has a reputation for easy to use appliances that offer convenience.
The Creami was Ninja's introduction into the world of frozen desserts, bringing the art of ice cream making into the home. Now their latest release, the Ninja Swirl combines the functionality of the Creami with a soft serve dispenser to add more fun and excitement. But does it live up to the hype and is it worth the investment? Our experts take a look.
On this page:
- What is the Ninja Swirl by Creami?
- What can you do with the Ninja Swirl?
- How does it work?
- Is the Ninja Swirl easy to use?
- How good is the soft serve dispenser?
- Is it worth making your own ice cream with the Ninja Swirl by Creami?
What is the Ninja Swirl by Creami?
The Ninja Swirl is the evolution of the original Ninja Creami, a home appliance that churns frozen mixtures into creamy desserts. The fun part is that it not only delivers scoopable ice cream but can also turn that ice cream into soft-serve style swirls via a built-in dispenser straight into your cup or cone.
What you get in the box
It comes with two 470mL tubs that can be used for your mixtures, a bowl that the tubs are placed into for processing, a paddle which does the processing and lids for the tubs and bowl.
The soft serve attachment allows your creations to be expertly dispensed into cones or cups and a drip tray sits underneath to catch any spills. You'll also receive over 20 recipes to get you started on your ice cream making journey.
Keep in mind that each 470ml tub needs to be pre-frozen with your ice-cream mixture before you can turn it into soft serve, so this limits the amount of ice cream you can make at any one time.
If you want to serve more than 2 x 470ml portions at once (about 4 adult servings or up to 6 kids servings per tub), you will need to buy extra tubs. These are currently available to buy in the US, but they are not yet available in Australia.
What can you do with the Ninja Swirl?
The Swirl not only makes regular scoopable ice cream, but can also dispense the soft serve texture and consistency, using the same star nozzle swirly pattern that you would expect of a takeaway soft-serve ice cream.
With six soft-serve programs and six scoop programs you can even create desserts like sorbet, thick shakes, frozen yoghurt, gelato and fruit whip.
"The benefit is that you can customise the flavour to suit your taste and dietary requirements, knowing exactly what's going into your frozen treats," says CHOICE expert tester, Elias Plastiras.
How does it work?
For all ice cream makers you need a pre-prepared custard mixture or fruit base. But Elias says, "unlike other ice cream makers that freeze and churn the mixture for you, the Ninja only does the processing (or churning) part".
With the Swirl you need to add the mixture to the supplied tubs and leave it in the freezer for 24 hours before it can be churned in the machine. The mixture ideally needs to be level in the tub so that the paddle can spin down onto it to produce a creamy and smooth texture and consistency. For any unprocessed bits you simply need to use a spatula to bring it back into the centre and re-spin.
There's also a mix-in program that allows you to add things like choc chips to your ice cream, however, there's no mix-in chute, so you'll need to remove the tub to add the bits to your mix.
If you're making ice cream it can take a couple of minutes to churn in the Swirl, while frozen yoghurt can take about five minutes.
"Planning is essential with the Ninja Swirl. Unless you're using store-bought ice cream, you can't decide in the morning that you want to make ice cream from scratch for the same day with this machine," Elias explains.
Is the Ninja Swirl easy to use?
The Swirl is simple and straightforward to use. It's labelled well and the instructions provided are comprehensive.
If you're new to making ice cream from scratch, Ninja makes it simple to follow the supplied recipes. And if you want to make it even simpler, the machine can be used to turn store-bought ice cream into soft serve or even thick shakes with the addition of milk.
The control panel of the Ninja Swirl by Creami is labelled well.
Is it easy to clean?
While the exterior is fairly easy to wipe over, there are many parts that need cleaning. Thankfully they are all dishwasher safe, however, when making soft serve, there will be remnants left over that need to be manually scooped out of the dispenser, as not all the mixture gets pushed out by the machine.
Elias says, "cleaning can get quite annoying, especially if you switch flavours, from a milk-based ice cream to sorbet for example, you'll need to clean everything very thoroughly in between."
Is the Ninja Swirl easy to store?
The Swirl is quite tall and bulky – it's essentially the original Ninja Creami appliance with the addition of the soft serve dispenser.
Unless you have a dedicated area to store it permanently on your kitchen bench you'll need space to put it away and even a standard-sized cupboard is likely not tall enough. (our experts note that due to its height, you may need to store it on its side.)
Is it noisy?
The machine gets very loud when churning and can reach well over 80dB, which is equivalent to heavy traffic noise. Elias says, "thankfully the machine only takes a few minutes to turn icy mixtures into creamy treats, so the noise shouldn't get too intrusive".
How good is the soft serve dispenser?
Elias was impressed with how light and fluffy the soft serve was. He said, "it was very enjoyable but the novelty didn't last long, especially when it came time to clean the machine."
Store-bought ice cream produced a soft serve that was much softer in comparison to our CHOICE vanilla ice cream recipe, and it was much quicker to melt too.
"For the best results, make your ice cream, put it back in the freezer, then back into the machine for a re-spin before making your soft serve."
Doing this will help it to hold its shape a bit longer.
What about making regular ice cream?
We also subjected the Ninja Swirl to our ice cream makers test method to see how it fares against other ice cream makers we've tested. For vanilla ice cream, the Swirl produced a good result, creating a uniform consistency with a smooth and creamy mouthfeel with vanilla beans evenly distributed throughout the mixture.
The vegan frozen yoghurt produced a very good result, however, the higher water content with minimal sugar means this dessert is best consumed immediately after churning.
The lemon sorbet was rated as good. It had good flavour but because it has no milk solids, it melts much quicker when churning, so you can't scoop it out like you would an ice cream.
Is it worth making your own ice cream with the Ninja Swirl by Creami?
Sure, having soft serve ice cream at home sounds great, but the novelty could quickly wear off and then you're left with a bulky machine that's awkward to store and even more time consuming to clean (when you use it).
Unless making soft serve at home is an absolute must, you can save some money by opting for the original Ninja Creami NC300 (which makes creamy desserts in the same way, just without the soft-serve dispenser). Or another, cheaper ice-cream maker.
Elias says, "If you want to create your own recipes, experiment with different flavours and then have the "wow" factor of a soft serve dispenser in your own home, then the Swirl is the machine for you. Just consider where it'll live in your kitchen and how much you'll use it to get your money's worth."
However, when we asked CHOICE home economist, Fiona Mair what she thought of the machine she said she wouldn't buy it and thinks you'll get better value elsewhere.
"We've tested other ice cream makers in the labs that cost less, produce better results and do the freezing and churning all at once."
See our ice cream maker results, to see how the Ninja Swirl compares to other machines we've tested from Cuisinart, Magimix, Breville and more.
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