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The KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker 5KSMICM Attachment is a useful addition for anyone looking to make ice cream and get the most out of their existing KitchenAid stand mixer without the need to crowd their kitchen with additional appliances. While you may need to plan in advance to freeze the bowl, and it can temporarily dominate your freezer space, it also has a pretty generous capacity and will freeze iced dessert batters effectively and evenly with help from the mixer’s churning capabilities. You also need to take bowl defrosting time into account for clean-up, but the dasher and drive assembly are handily dishwashable.

The KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker 5KSMICM Attachment is an update of the previous KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment (5KICA0WH), with a bowl that “stays colder, longer”, according to the brand. It’s compatible with most of the brand’s tilt-head and bowl-lift stand mixers besides the 3.3L KitchenAid Mini and the Heavy Duty 5K models, such as 5KPM5, 5KPM50 and 5K5.

This attachment is more expensive than both KitchenAid’s previous iteration and some of the budget standalone ice cream makers, while requiring you to already own a KitchenAid stand mixer. However, it’s easy to use and delivers quick, delicious results with a great texture – once you get past the 16-hour bowl-freezing time.

The 5KSMICM Ice Cream Maker attachment consists of a ridged white bowl with double walls containing freezable liquid; a dasher – a plastic churning paddle; and a drive assembly, which attaches the dasher onto the stand mixer.

To start using the ice cream maker, the bowl needs to be placed in the freezer for a minimum of 16 hours (the optimal time will depend on your freezer settings). With the bowl having roughly similar measurements to a 4.8L KitchenAid stand mixer bowl (190x260x220mm), this means you’ll need a fairly large/empty freezer drawer. 

Yet, the freezable bowl also has good capacity – fitting up to 1.4L of ice cream batter, which can then expand up to 1.9L of ice cream during the churning process.

The bowl attaches to the bowl-clamping plate of a tilt-head mixer. The drive assembly is quite easy to attach here, even if its connection to the appliance never feels completely fixed. But it will be held firmly in place once it’s lowered onto the dasher, which simply needs to be placed in the empty bowl.

For bowl-lift mixers, the bowl-lift handle needs to be in the down position and the bowl with dasher in place before affixing the drive assembly onto the dasher.

While the dasher and drive assembly can be washed in the top rack of a dishwasher, the bowl is only suitable for washing by hand. The bowl isn’t difficult to clean, but washing it is only recommended once it has completely defrosted, adding some waiting time to the clean-up. 

Disappointingly, there’s only one ice cream recipe included in the thick 19-language manual. My first test was preparing this one, which – although a fairly neutral option – included heating a milk-and-egg mixture and then letting it cool for several hours. Yet, this delicious vanilla ice cream was definitely worth the effort. 

After 14mins, the mixture started pulling into a lump in the middle, achieving a soft-serve quality in the centre of the bowl, with the edges that were in contact with the mixer being understandably harder. After two hours in my -18°C freezer, it had a texture somewhere between soft serve and regular ice cream, then hardening yet maintaining a certain delicacy overnight. 

I had similarly great results with a strawberry ice cream, although after some hours in the freezer, the texture became a bit more brittle here due to the water quantity of the berries. As I’d made too much ice cream batter, I also used the bowl for two consecutive batches, so the last batch took around 20mins instead of the usual 15mins as the bowl gradually defrosted. The batter stayed a little more liquid, but it was still visibly thickened. 

Then I turned my attention to a sorbet recipe using pureed mango and sugar water. The mixture began visibly thickening 5mins into the churning and achieved a slightly melted sorbet texture after another 5mins. In 15mins all in all, the sorbet had a texture suitable for immediate serving. 

Since the bowl is extremely cold, the manual advises pouring the batter into it only once the mixer is running to keep it from freezing prematurely. While the speed is kept to a minimum here anyway, avoiding any splashback, it will take a little practice to avoid making a mess.

You have/want a KitchenAid stand mixer that can also make ice cream. This attachment is a great accessory for someone who already owns a KitchenAid stand mixer or is looking to invest in a versatile premium mixer.

You don’t have a KitchenAid mixer and only need an ice cream maker. There are specialist ice cream makers out there to suit every budget.

While there are various ice cream makers available to suit every budget, the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker 5KSMICM Attachment is a handy solution for those who already own one of the brand’s compatible stand mixers, or for those on the market for both a premium stand mixer and an ice cream maker in one appliance. 

While the large but capacious bowl needs a bit of space and time in the freezer, it also enables the stand mixer to prepare nicely textured iced desserts with ease and speed.

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Used as our main mixer for the review period

We mix meringues to check for fluffy consistency, make cake mixture and knead dough.

No, it requires a KitchenAid mixer – most models are compatible.

It has to be in for 16 hours before you make ice cream.

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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

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