Cons
- Loud operation
- Larger footprint that may not be good for small spaces
The Ninja Swirl by Creami has been on the market for less than a month but the revolutionary tech is already making a huge splash in the ice cream world and I’ve found the best place for it: the office. After all, nothing helps boost company morale better than an ice cream party, and the CNET team got to experience it firsthand.
I loved the smooth texture of the frozen yogurt.
For events and large groups, that nozzle plus the additional setting options come in handy by offering more variety and making it feel like you have an ice cream or frozen yogurt vendor right in your home or office. But, is that worth an extra $170 in comparison to the price tag on the Ninja Creami? We set out to find out.
How the Ninja Swirl by Creami works
The Swirl offers six soft serve programs: Soft serve ice cream, soft serve lite ice cream, fruit whip, frozen yogurt, frozen custard and CreamiFit (ideal for protein mixtures). Plus, it comes with a booklet of more than 30 recipes to help you get started using the machine and it offers substitutions in case you want to make the recipes vegan or low-sugar.
When we created Ninja’s vanilla soft serve, I thought it was delicious and tasted a bit like pudding. This week, I was ready to give the Swirl another whirl, so I made a few more concoctions to see how different types of frozen treats would turn out. This time, a handful of the NYC staff indulged in one-ingredient frozen yogurt and dairy-free vanilla coconut ice cream, both of which were easy to prepare.
The pint fits perfectly inside the outer bowl.
Next, I chose my selections based on the recipe I was using and waited for it to complete. The frozen yogurt and vanilla ice cream both took five minutes to spin while the vegan ice cream took four minutes. It was loud but it only lasted for the quick spin time.
After it was finished spinning, I removed the pint from the outer bowl and placed the dispense lid on top of it, then clicked it into place on the soft serve side of the machine before using the lever to serve it. It takes a couple of seconds to dispense once you pull down the lever. In comparison, the coconut ice cream was the creamiest and it was only slightly sweet while the vanilla soft serve was by far the sweetest and the fro-yo was more tart as we used Greek yogurt to create a higher protein snack.
Nasha Addarich Martínez dispensing the coconut vanilla soft serve during our taste test.
When the soft serve runs out of the pint, the Swirl automatically retracts the pint for easy removal from the machine, then you can rinse off the pint and lid and pop it in the dishwasher until you’re ready to create another batch.
“I think it’s so cool that you can create a tasty coconut ice cream whenever you want,” said Meara Isenberg, a CNET writer, adding that she’s excited to see what we will whip up with it next.
The soft serve nozzle helps you achieve the perfect cone every time.
