Ninja Creami Deluxe Review

We have tried all sorts of appliances from ones that clean to ones that make food and nothing compares to the excitement we had for the Ninja Creami. The Creami allows you to make all sorts of ice cream flavors and frozen treats that can be low fat and sugar-free or good old fashioned ice cream that's full fat and sugar.

Once we unboxed our Creami, we spent the next few days trying to get a handle on how it works. We got the Ninja Creami Deluxe Model, which has a few extra buttons and features than the standard Creami. For us, there was a lot of trial and error to see what liquid and sweetener combinations worked well and which ones were problematic. You end up needing more sweetener than you think. Granulated sugar works and tastes the best, but If you're trying to keep the calories low we prefer to use agave syrup. The keto friendly sweeteners like erythritol and allulose lead to bloating, and stevia just adds too much bitterness. But we encourage you to try all the sweeteners and see what you think. We are going to experiment with adding dates in the future to see how they taste in ice cream.

What milk should you use? The less fat contained in the liquid you're using, the more icy it will be. On that topic, if you plan on using skim milk, almond milk or another milk alternative, you will need to add a little guar gum or xanthan gum to thicken it up and give a creamier consistency. If using actual dairy, the sweet spot is somewhere between 2% milk and heavy cream for great ice cream consistency. If you're trying to make a homemade Dairy Queen Blizzard, 2% or whole milk will give you the best results. If trying to make a rich gelato type ice cream, adding egg yolks to heavy cream will get a very rich and creamy texture. If you plan on adding protein powders to your ice cream, make sure they are neutral in flavor or unflavored.

There are many Creami recipes online to choose from, but we do suggest making at least one recipe from the manual. It will give you an idea of what combos and measurements work great in the machine. You can adjust from there, but it's a great starting point. Most of the recipes we saw online are for the regular Creami machine and are for the 16 ounce pints, which isn't enough liquid for the 24 oz containers on the Deluxe model. Some tricks that work aren't in the manual, such as running lukewarm water on the container when you pull it out of the freezer. You do this for 60 seconds. It helps prevent the sides of the ice cream from not blending in properly because they're still frozen. Avoiding this step could make the ice cream have a weird icy texture when you're eating it.

So what do all those buttons and settings on the Creami Deluxe do? The 3 high up buttons are Top, Full and Bottom. Suppose you don't want to eat the entire 24 oz container full of ice cream, but you know you want to eat half. Then you would press the "Top" button and the Creami will only blend the top portion of the container, leaving the bottom half of the container untouched so you can enjoy it later. And when you do want the 2nd half of the container you would select the "Bottom" button to blend the rest of the container. Otherwise, if you plan on eating the entire container you would press the "Full" button. After eating a few of these containers, we realized that 24 ounces is a lot of ice cream in one sitting, even for 2 people. For one person, we highly recommend utilizing the Top Button the first time to see how much you can actually eat.

The middle button is a dial surrounded by settings: For us, we have experimented with the "ice cream", "lite ice cream" and the "sorbet" settings. Each setting tells the Creami how fast to spin the paddle to whip up the frozen treats. The Lite Ice Cream and Sorbet settings are the loudest. It rivals our Vitamix as far as decibel level. The normal Ice Cream setting is much quieter. For ice creams that are lower in fat, you will most likely have to do the Lite Ice Cream setting which is a long 4 minute process. We recommend making Lite Ice Cream earlier in the day, because it is a long and loud 4 minutes. You're neighbors might not appreciate you making Lite Ice Cream after 10pm.

The bottom 3 buttons are the power button, Mix-in, and Re-Spin. The Re-Spin button will probably be the most common button used as almost every ice cream recipe will need at least one more spin to get the right texture and consistency. The mix-in button is used to add chocolate chips, candy bars, or cookies to make your own homemade Blizzard or McFlurry. Refer to the manual to see what you can and can't use for a mix-in. Chocolate chips usually freeze and don't work too good unless they're the right ratio of fat/sugar. Peanut butter cups and Oreos work amazing and we highly recommend using those. One weird phenomenon that we can't explain is having to unplug the machine and then replug it in between uses. If you don't do this it won't turn on. Not sure if it's a power issue or protection thing, but it's a little strange. It doesn't affect the performance of the machine otherwise, but it's worth mentioning.

On the Deluxe containers, it took us a while to figure out which line to fill to. On the left side of the horizontal line it says Scoopable Max Fill. There's a ridge an inch from the top, under where it says Max Fill. Go to this line if you're making a full batch of ice cream or sorbet. And speaking of containers, you'll want to get a few more if you like having a bunch of different flavors ready to go. Right now we have 4 and that seems to be enough for the 2 of us. Every container that gets finished we're already thinking of a new recipe to whip up. We've tried everything from Dole Whip, to a healthy banana only sorbet, to mint oreo. But the one thing you'll want to get right is just a classic vanilla especially if you want to do mix-ins. I've seen a lot of people online mention to level out your frozen containers if they formed a mound during the freezing process. Apparently If you don't scrape the mound down with a spoon, you can damage the paddle.

One last tip, if you want to do mix-ins, don't re-spin after the initial spin. Just hit the mix-in button after the initial spin to prevent your ice cream from getting too thin. You can overspin your liquid and get more of a milkshake consistency rather than a Blizzard. With so many features and flavor combinations, you won't stop getting enjoyment from the Creami. It's nice to have ice cream anytime you want and this machine will allow you to have it all day, everyday!

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