Ice cream is my favorite food. I'll eat it no matter what season or flavor. Just give me ice cream that’s rich, creamy, and made with quality ingredients, and I’m happy. That’s why I own several ice cream makers—I like being able to control what goes into my ice cream, experiment with flavors, and play with textures. Among the machines in my regular rotation are a single-pint gadget and a 2-quart canister model (that’s the kind with the frozen bowl). But recently I added the GreenPan Frost to my small cadre of ice cream producers, and it’s my favorite one yet. A cross between the Ninja Creami and the Ninja Slushi, the Frost is one of the few machines on the market that has the ability to make soft-serve ice cream as well as sorbet, frozen yogurt, slushies, smoothies, frozen cocktails, and milkshakes. And the best part? Everything’s ready in about 40 minutes.
The Frost is a large machine—it’s 17 inches deep and 17 inches tall, so it will fit under most kitchen cabinets, but barely. However, that size also means it comes with substantial capacity, a 64-ounce mixing bowl. It also has a blade that stirs ice cream and beverage bases and a built-in compressor that uses a coolant to reach the optimal freezing temperature—no need to freeze canisters or chill bases in advance. Its simple control panel has just a Start/Stop button that doubles as a dial for adjusting the texture, and a Mode button for choosing one of six modes: slushie, soft ice cream, spiked slushies, sorbet, milkshake, and extrude/clean.
When I first removed the Frost from its box, I immediately felt overwhelmed. It was big, with what seemed like too many little parts to piece together. This isn’t practical, I thought. It’s too much work to assemble and disassemble everything each time I use or clean this machine. Thankfully, the instruction manual was very clear and all those little parts came together easily in about two minutes.
Making frozen treats is also a snap: Turn on the machine, pour the base into the mixing bowl, then select a mode and hit the Start/Stop button. The chosen mode lights up on the panel, along with its texture level, ranging from L1 (thin) to L7 (thick). You can tweak the texture by turning the Start/Stop button left or right. The Frost automatically determines the length of time the cycle should run and emits a beep when finished. It then goes into Cool mode so you can extrude your frozen treats, and it stays in that mode to maintain the proper consistency of your creation.
The first thing I made in the Frost was vanilla soft serve, following a recipe from the instruction manual. The texture of the ice cream, that came out in a continuous ribbon, was luxuriously smooth and not at all soupy or icy. This soft-serve was far superior to anything I’ve ever had from an ice cream shop or ice cream truck. It had more body and a richer mouthfeel, with a pure vanilla flavor that wasn’t competing with artificial ingredients.
Soda slushies are ridiculously easy to make in the Frost and require just 1 liter of soda and the Slushie mode. GreenPan warns against using sugar-free soda, and it means it (the manual says every recipe should be at least 4% sugar). I used diet lemon-lime soda, and it froze around the mixing blade in a solid block. Sugar helps to prevent that. So I made another batch with orange soda, and the Frost created an icy-smooth and sippable drink. My frosé was also a success and the hit of Thanksgiving. Though it’s obviously more suited for summer, the frosty pink cocktail was a bright, refreshing complement to the appetizers that guests were gobbling up.
Cleaning the machine, pleasantly, isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I pour warm, soapy water into the bowl, run the 5-minute Clean cycle and extrude the water, then repeat the process twice with just warm water. Lastly, I take the fountain handle and decorative cover off the front of the machine, then remove the mixing bowl and blade for a final rinse in the sink. Once they dry, it takes seconds to put everything back in place.
Yes, the Frost takes up significant counter space, and yes, it’s expensive at $400, but those are really the only cons I can find with the machine (other than the occasional brain freeze it causes me). It’s simple, speedy, versatile, and yields excellent results. If you love frozen desserts and drinks, you’ll be delighted by the Frost.