Russell Hobbs Chilluxe Ice Cream Maker review: proper homemade gelato in under five minutes flat

A stylish little machine that turns a pre-frozen tub into smooth, scoopable ice cream, sorbet or gelato in minutes, as long as you plan a day ahead

The Chilluxe is one of the easiest routes into proper homemade ice cream we’ve tried. Drop a pre-frozen tub in, press a preset, and four minutes later you’ve got smooth, scoopable gelato, sorbet or a protein-shake “nice cream” with none of the grainy, half-melted mess that comes from a lot of cheaper machines. The catch is the same catch every “instant” ice cream maker shares: it isn’t actually instant. You need to plan 24 hours ahead, it’s a genuinely tall gadget to find room for, and it’s loud for the short time it’s running. If you can live with the prep, it’s a genuinely good buy. If you want ice cream on a whim, keep scrolling.

Pros

• Turns a pre-frozen base into soft-serve in 3 to 5 minutes flat
• Seven presets cover ice cream, light ice cream, sorbet, gelato, frozen yoghurt, milkshake and mix-in
• Re-spin button rescues a crumbly first pass without starting over
• Dishwasher-safe lid, blade and tubs
• Comes with two 500ml tubs, so you can freeze two flavours at once

Cons

• Every batch needs a full 24 hours in the freezer before you can use it
• No active chilling, so if your base starts to soften before you spin it, that’s it, you’re re-freezing
• Tall footprint (38.5cm) makes it awkward for anyone short on cupboard space
• The 800W motor is properly loud, even if it’s only for a few minutes at a time
  
  

Quick specs

Price	£159.99 RRP
Power	800W motor, 4-tip stainless steel blade
Presets	7 (ice cream, light ice cream, sorbet, gelato, frozen yoghurt, milkshake, mix-in)
Batch size	Approx. 0.88 pints (500ml) per tub
Included	2x 500ml lidded tubs
Dimensions	30.7cm (D) x 38.5cm (H) x 17.3cm (W)
Cleaning	Dishwasher-safe removable parts
Warranty	3 years when registered online

Price and availability

The Chilluxe launched at £159.99 direct from Russell Hobbs and via Argos, and that’s still the going RRP as of writing. Argos has previously sold it as low as £139.99 during sales, so it’s worth keeping an eye out if you’re not in a rush, but don’t expect to see it dip much below that. It’s also stocked at Very, Littlewoods and Robert Dyas, all at broadly the same price point, plus there’s a “Complete Bundle” version that throws in two extra tubs and a pair of scoops for a bit more.

For context, that undercuts its most obvious rival, the Ninja Creami, which sits at £199.99 for the standard model and £250 for the Deluxe. The Chilluxe isn’t just cheaper, it also comes with slightly bigger tubs out of the box (500ml versus the Creami’s 473ml), which matters more than it sounds like when you’re trying to fit a proper portion for two.

Design and build

There’s no getting around it: this is a big appliance for what it does. At 38.5cm tall it’s not something you’re tucking under a wall cabinet, and the footprint means it wants its own patch of worktop rather than a shared corner. What it does have going for it is looks. The “baked stone” finish is a genuine step up from the shiny plastic most ice cream makers still come in, and it fits in with the same wave of neutral-toned countertop appliances we’ve seen from the likes of Ninja and Cuisinart over the past year or so. It doesn’t look like a novelty gadget you’ll be ashamed of in six months, which is more than we can say for most single-use kitchen kit.

The controls are refreshingly simple: seven labelled presets and a re-spin button, no dial-hunting or app pairing required. The lid locks the freezer tub in place while the blade does its work, and once you’re done, the lid, the four-tip stainless blade and both tubs go straight in the dishwasher. That’s a genuinely nice touch after a session that inevitably leaves the tub rim a bit sticky.

Performance and real-world use

Here’s the thing that actually makes the Chilluxe worth the money: it works. Once your base is properly frozen solid, drop the tub in, choose your preset, and in three to five minutes the blade has shaved and folded it into something that looks and tastes like it came out of a proper churn, not a blender that’s given up halfway. We tried it across a fruit sorbet, a custard-based gelato and a fairly lazy protein shake “nice cream,” and all three came out smooth rather than icy, with none of the grainy crunch you get from letting a tub of frozen fruit sit out and just stabbing at it with a spoon.

The re-spin button earns its place, too. On a couple of batches, particularly the sorbet, the first pass came out slightly crumbly at the edges where the mixture hadn’t frozen quite evenly. A second spin fixed it in under a minute, no faff, no need to start again from scratch. It’s a small feature but it’s the difference between a machine that sometimes disappoints and one that consistently doesn’t.

The seven presets aren’t just a marketing number either. Ice cream and light ice cream give you a genuinely different texture depending on how much sugar or fat substitute you’ve used, gelato handles a denser, egg-based custard well, and the milkshake setting is fast enough that we’d actually reach for it over a normal blender when there are kids asking for one right now. The mix-in function, which folds in extras like crushed biscuits or chocolate chips towards the end of the cycle, does exactly what it says without turning the whole batch to mush.

The two things working against it are structural rather than fixable with a firmware update. First, that 24-hour freeze is non-negotiable. This isn’t a machine with its own compressor, like the pricier gelato makers you’ll find at three or four times the cost. It’s shaving a block of pre-frozen mixture, which means the block has to already be frozen solid, no shortcuts. Second, and this follows on from the first point, there’s no way to rescue a mixture that’s started to melt mid-process. If your kitchen’s warm, or you’ve left the tub out on the side for ten minutes while you sort something else, you’re not getting a smooth result, you’re getting soup. Treat the freezing step as seriously as the machine does and you won’t run into this.

It’s also loud. Not painfully so, and it’s only running for a handful of minutes at a time, but the 800W motor makes itself known, enough that we wouldn’t be running it after the kids are in bed.

Who it’s actually for

The obvious audience is anyone who likes fiddling with flavours a supermarket freezer aisle will never stock. A basil and lime sorbet, a goat’s cheese ice cream, whatever odd combination you’ve been meaning to try, the Chilluxe handles all of it the same way it handles vanilla, and the dense, churn-like texture it produces is genuinely closer to a gelato counter than most home machines manage.

It’s also worth a look if you’re cooking around a diet rather than just a craving. Swap dairy for oat or almond milk and the machine doesn’t care, it processes the frozen base the same way regardless of what’s in it. The same goes for lower-sugar versions using sweeteners, or the now fairly common trick of freezing a protein shake or a tub of blended cottage cheese and fruit and spinning it into something that tastes a lot more like a treat than the ingredients suggest. Anyone managing a nut or gluten allergy gets the same benefit: total control over what’s gone into the tub in the first place.

Families get an unexpected win too. The 24-hour freeze sounds like the opposite of convenient, but once you’re in the habit of it, the actual moment of making something is under five minutes, which is faster than most people can drive to a shop and back. Prep a milkshake base the night before and it’s ready before the kids have finished asking for it. It’s also a genuinely good fit for anyone who hosts a lot, since you can freeze three or four different tubs across a few days and spin each one fresh right before serving, rather than trying to keep a single homemade batch from turning to ice in the freezer between courses.

Where it stops making sense is the middle of a hot afternoon when you’ve suddenly decided ice cream sounds good. There’s no version of this machine that gets you there in the next half hour, so if that’s the itch you’re trying to scratch, a machine with a built-in compressor is the better, if pricier, answer. The same goes if your freezer is already rammed. The tubs need to sit flat for a full day, and that’s a harder ask in a small kitchen than the box makes it look.

Verdict

The Chilluxe is a good buy for a specific kind of person: someone who wants proper, smooth homemade ice cream, gelato or sorbet without buying a machine that costs three figures more, and who’s happy to plan a day ahead rather than deciding on a whim. For batch-prepping a freezer full of different flavours ahead of a dinner party, or for anyone managing dietary restrictions who wants total control over what goes into their dessert, it’s genuinely one of the easier, less fiddly options out there. The re-spin button and dishwasher-safe parts make it feel like a machine that was actually designed by someone who’s used one of these before, not just cloned from a spec sheet.

Where it falls down is if you’re after true spontaneity. There’s no getting a scoop of ice cream 20 minutes after deciding you fancy one, and if your freezer drawers are already packed, finding room for a tub that has to lie flat for 24 hours isn’t nothing. It’s also simply a big object to find a home for, both on the worktop and in the freezer.

If neither of those is a dealbreaker, buy it. It’s cheaper than its biggest rival, comes with bigger tubs, and does what it promises without the sales patter falling apart the moment you actually use it.

Also consider

Ninja Creami (NC300UK), £199.99: The Chilluxe’s closest rival, and the machine most people compare it to. Slightly smaller tubs and a higher price, but a longer track record and a wider aftermarket of recipe communities if you want to lean on other people’s trial and error.

Ninja Creami Deluxe, £250: Same idea, bigger tubs (three at 700ml each) and more presets, including a dedicated high-protein setting. Worth the jump only if you’re regularly making large batches or want the extra functions.

Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, around £168: A more traditional churn-style machine rather than a shave-and-spin one. Still needs a pre-frozen bowl, but pours liquid mixture in gradually rather than working from a fully frozen block, which suits people who prefer a classic churned texture over the denser result you get from the Chilluxe.