Summer’s coming, and if you have kids, that potentially means more frozen treats. Perfect timing for appliance specialist Tefal, which has a small ice cream maker on the way.
There’s a right time and a wrong time for ice cream, but typically the wrong time is when you’re sleeping and when you’ve run out. Not much can be done about the first one of those beyond waking up, but the second one may have a gadget solution or two.
The idea of an ice cream maker isn’t that new, but in recent years, more of these gadgets are coming to light, with the latest from Tefal.
The “Dolci” is that model, and for its launch, the company has teamed up with Nesquik for a small frozen dessert maker that can take the simple classic of chocolate milk (or strawberry milk and banana milk), and turn them into frozen convections.
Dolci’s approach is fairly simple: you’ll take a canister of your milk variety, freeze it overnight, and then come back to mix it in the Dolci dessert maker the next morning, with a single cycle churning the mixture into a variety of styles.
You can choose homemade ice cream, sorbet, gelato, frozen yoghurt, or even something more drinkable, the Dolce effectively able to replace a milkshake maker with a “milkshake” setting as well as frappe, slushies, and frozen cocktails.
Each freezing container holds 500ml of potential ice cream, so it’s not going to replace a litre of ice cream in the freezer, and since you need to prepare it by pre-freezing the mixture, it’s not going to really serve quick fixes. But it does work similarly to other frozen treat makers that work without a compressor, as this tends to make appliances a little more costly and larger overall.
Tefal also notes the Dolci comes with an easy cleaning system running an auto-rinse, though its parts are also dishwasher safe, helping to deal with the headache of ice cream maker cleaning.
Thanks to the Nesquik collaboration, the machine also comes with a few tins of Nesquik to make chocolate, strawberry, and banana ice creams, though you can also make your own mixtures. In this reviewer’s house, we’re big fans of the Ben & Jerry’s recipe book, particularly its sweet cream base.
Australians with a sweet tooth will find the Tefal Dolci Ice Cream Maker in stores shortly, priced at $449 and available in two colours.
