Buy it. This is the machine we recommend more than any other on the site, and the reasoning is short: it makes very good ice cream, it costs a fifth of what a compressor machine costs, and it has one constraint that a single habit removes.
What the published testing found
America's Test Kitchen named the ICE-21 its best canister-style machine in the June 2026 update of its ice cream maker review, listed at $70. That was not a budget consolation category — it beat other canister machines costing more, including Cuisinart's own.
Dream Scoops rates it highly across every category and calls it an excellent value that produces superior ice cream for its price. Their measurements are the most useful thing on the page: a 15 to 20 minute churn, which they describe as one of the fastest machines, and 79 to 82 dB of noise during operation. They put the bowl's pre-freeze at 16 to 24 hours, with overnight working acceptably in practice.
Barefeet in the Kitchen also covers it in their long-running ice cream maker comparison. Across all three, nobody reports a texture problem.
The one constraint, and the habit that removes it
The bowl is double-walled with a gel between the layers. You freeze it solid, and the stored cold is what freezes your base. That gives it a fixed cold budget: one batch, then 16 to 24 hours to recharge. It cannot make two batches in an evening and it cannot make a batch today if you thought of it today.
The habit
Keep the bowl in the freezer permanently. Treat it as a freezer resident rather than something you store in a cupboard and remember to freeze. Do that and the 24-hour wait stops existing — the machine becomes a same-day machine for the cost of one freezer shelf. This is the single most useful thing to know about owning a canister machine and most reviews do not mention it.
What 1.5 quarts actually is
One generous dessert for four to six people. Not a week of supply, and not a party. Bear in mind that the rated figure is the point at which the expanding mixture starts climbing out, so about two thirds full is the practical fill — call it a quart of finished ice cream.
If that is too little, the ICE-30BCP1 is the 2-quart version of the same machine for about $30 more per ATK's listing. The comparison is at ICE-21 versus ICE-30, and the honest summary is that half a quart is rarely worth the difference.
Using it well
- Chill the base properly. Four hours in the fridge minimum, overnight is better. A warm base spends the bowl's cold budget on cooling rather than freezing, and you get soup after 40 minutes. This is the cause of nearly every failed first batch.
- Do not overfill. Two thirds of the bowl. Ice cream expands as air churns in.
- Stop at soft-serve consistency and harden it in the freezer for two to four hours if you want scoopable ice cream. How long to churn covers what to look for.
- Buy a spare bowl if you want two flavors in a day. It costs a fraction of what upgrading to a compressor would.
What it is not
It is not quiet. 79 to 82 dB per Dream Scoops is louder than Whynter's 55 to 60 dBA rating for its compressor machines, though it only runs for twenty minutes.
It is not a gelato machine in the strict sense. There is no second low-air paddle and no texture programs; you control overrun by choosing when to stop. That works, and if gelato is the actual goal the Cuisinart ICE-100 or the ICE-70P1 are better tools — see the gelato roundup.
It is not for someone who will not plan. If the bowl is not in the freezer and you want dessert tonight, this machine cannot help you, and the honest answer is a compressor machine.
Verdict
The best-value appliance in this entire category and the right first machine for nearly everyone. The only reasons not to buy it are needing more than 1.5 quarts, needing two batches in a day, or refusing to plan ahead — and each of those has a clearly better answer elsewhere on this site rather than a compromise here.
Make the no-fail vanilla first.
