Stefano Chef's CHILL TILES° method turns your gelato bases into thin, flat, stackable tiles inside simple zip freezer bags or vacuum-seal bags. Your Moulinex Dolci or Tefal Dolci comes with just 3 Tritan bowls of 480 ml. Solution: 1 bowl is enough, the bases live as tiles in the freezer, always ready to process on demand.
Print, keep offline, read by the freezer while preparing your tiles. Complete book in PDF, free, 9 A4 pages with photos, calculations and step-by-step procedure.
Open the box of your Moulinex Dolci (models MJ602AF0 Ivory, MJ604AF0 Ivory with spoon, MJ6038F0 Midnight Blue) or Tefal Dolci (NQ31IG04A Rise, IG602A Black Knight). Inside you find 3 Tritan bowls of 480 ml — the official French manual calls them "petits bols de congélation", in English "small freezing bowls". BPA-free, certified Reg. EU 10/2011. Three. Stop.
The Ninja Creami Deluxe (NC500, NC501) instead has the 710 ml XL pint in transparent plastic with MAX FILL Scoopable and Drinkable lines. Here too: 1 or 2 pints in the box, max 4 in deluxe bundles. The professional Pacojet, world reference for Michelin-starred chefs, works with beakers in stainless steel of 1 L filled to 80% — but that's another price range (€3,500+).
The #1 problem of the ICED Method community is always the same: 3 bowls are too few. Want 5 flavors ready for the weekend? Got a freezer full of other stuff? Want to prep bases in batches to save time? You need more containers. But the consumer market is empty: Moulinex and Tefal don't sell additional replacement Tritan bowls to the public, and the few spares available (on FixPart, DirectRepair, poliricambi.com) cost €30-60 each and are meant for technical service, not for scaling recipes.
I know from experience: the exact same thing happened with Ninja Creami. At first the extra containers were impossible to find, after 2 years Amazon was full of compatible third-party pints at €15 for 4. For the Dolci it'll be the same, but we need a solution now. CHILL TILES is that solution.
The principle is simple: you don't need more Tritan bowls, you need more frozen bases ready to go. The Tritan bowl is only for the final scraping moment. All the prior work — weighing, mixing, cooling, freezing — can happen in any other food-safe container.
CHILL TILES exploits exactly this: the zip freezer bag (or vacuum seal) as a thin, stackable storage container. Fill flat, freeze flat, break into pieces, transfer into the Tritan bowl, launch the program.
Important to be clear from the start: this procedure is not described in the official manuals of Tefal/Moulinex Dolci or Ninja Creami. The manuals describe a different flow (external prep → transfer into the machine bowl → freeze in the bowl → process). CHILL TILES is a parallel path developed by the community — not explicitly authorized nor forbidden, simply not contemplated. Anyone applying it assumes their own operational risk. The technical care points described in this guide aim to minimize that risk.
This is the point that changes everything compared to freezing in the machine bowl. A thin tile freezes much faster than a thick block — and it freezes better, more uniformly, with smaller ice crystals. The final result is better.
The freezer cools the base from the surface inwards. Heat has to travel from the core of the mass to the outer edge, where the freezer's cold air absorbs it. The farther the center is from the surface, the slower the heat exchange.
The tile's surface/volume ratio is dramatically higher. A 1 kg tile spread over 30×30 cm and 1 cm thick has about 1,800 cm² of surface exposed to cold air. A 700 ml pint has about 400 cm². Four times more surface for the same mass.
Fast freezing = small ice crystals. Small crystals = smooth creamy final texture after scraping. Slow freezing = large crystals = sandy texture, noticeable on the tongue. Thin tiles, freezing fast, preserve base quality better than a thick block left to freeze 24h in the bowl.
For your first trials, start with 5 mm thickness. It's the safest starting point: freezes in 6-8 hours, breaks by hand in a few minutes out of the freezer, and the malleability is optimal. From there experiment. If you want fuller tiles per flavor, go up to 8-10 mm. If you want maximum freezing speed and immediate malleability, go down to 3-4 mm.
Every base behaves differently: recipes with more fat (cream, chocolate) stay softer, watery recipes (fruit sorbets) freeze harder. Run trials, log thicknesses and times, find your optimal point for each recipe.
Before proceeding, terminology clarity. Three different machines, three different official names in the manuals. Confusing them leads to purchase errors (buying wrong replacements) and procedural errors.
Three types with different characteristics, certifications and limits. The first is the most accessible and works for most users. The other two require specific equipment.
Key criterion: the bag must be sealable while lying flat. This is the technical condition that allows thin horizontal freezing. The zip wins on this point.
Domestic bar sealers (FoodSaver, Laica, Caso) suck air from the bag opening. If the base is fully liquid, it gets sucked into the sealing area, dirties the hot bar, and prevents proper closure.
Solution documented in the FoodSaver and Laica VT3117 manuals: pre-freeze the base 30-60 minutes until pasty consistency, then vacuum seal. Alternatively, if your machine has it, use the PULSE VACUUM function: pulls in short cycles that stop liquid movement before sealing.
With zip freezer bags this problem doesn't exist: close by hand, fill flat, freeze. The base path remains the safest for beginners.
Even with vacuum: one inner bag (zip or embossed) + one outer zip over-bag. Three reasons: protection against tears in the freezer, blocking aroma migration (neutral bases next to red fruits or pistachio contaminate in 7-10 days), extra food safety layer. Even if it seems excessive, do it.
Mix all ingredients carefully. Fully dissolve sugars, powder proteins, stabilizers, salt. No lumps, no undissolved crystals. Tile quality starts here.
If the recipe is cooked (pasteurized, caramelized, reduced): cool fast to 4°C in an ice bath. Then let it mature in the fridge for a few hours (1-12 h recommended): hydrocolloids hydrate, flavors balance, air bubbles dissipate. Use plastic wrap touching the surface or an airtight container to prevent oxidation.
Pour the cooled base into the bag:
Expel the air. With a zip bag: Archimedes method (slowly immerse the bag in a bowl of cold water leaving the zip open at one corner, hydrostatic pressure pushes air out, close before the zip touches the water). With chamber vacuum: at least 3 degassing cycles without sealing — the liquid must not escape from the bag, watch closely — then seal at the last cycle.
Always double bag: the filled bag goes inside a second empty bag.
Critical step often skipped. Once the bag is closed, mix the contents again manually by pressing and squeezing from outside. Ingredients must be distributed uniformly across the surface. If there are concentrations in one spot (e.g. denser cocoa at the bottom, nuts in one corner), the tile freezes unevenly.
Lay the bag on a support that keeps it flat: baking sheet, large plate, rack/grid, metal tray, inverted sheet pan. Distribute the contents manually until uniform thickness. For first trials: start at 5 mm. From there experiment towards 3-4 mm (faster) or 8-10 mm (more capacity).
Tray in freezer at -18°C minimum, ideally -20/-22°C. Position perfectly flat. Freezing time:
Always label: preparation date, flavor, weight. Once tiles are frozen, remove the tray: tiles are now self-supporting and stackable. You can stack them in the freezer drawer.
Open the bag. Break the tile into large pieces (3-5 cm) with your hands or a sturdy spoon — the thin geometry allows it in seconds, even after only 8 hours of freezing.
Transfer the pieces into the Tritan bowl or pint. No liquid additions. Press well with the back of a spoon or a kitchen spatula to eliminate empty gaps between pieces. Level the top surface: it must be flat and compact.
Want maximum precision? Use the container lid (or the container itself) as a cookie cutter: it has the exact shape, cuts a perfect disc from the frozen tile. Not mandatory — spoon and spatula work just fine. It's an option for those who want to standardize portions.
Important: do not exceed the MAX fill lines on the container (MAX FILL Scoopable for Ninja, indicated level for Dolci). Overfilling = motor block or blade not working properly.
Two equivalent options:
RE-SPIN as default: if the first pass comes out grainy or powdery, re-spin smooths the texture. It's normal.
Here tiles become a true combination kit. You have 5-8 flavors ready in the freezer, each in separate bags. Each tile is a card to play.
Sherbet is fruit sorbet combined with a dairy base. Traditionally hard to make at home. With tiles it becomes trivial: process a tile of fruit sorbet (e.g. raspberry), add as mix-in or re-spin some pieces from a tile of dairy base (e.g. sweet cream) taken from another freezer bag. Result: raspberry sherbet with perfect dairy creaminess. Eyeball the dose: start with 20-30% dairy base, adjust to taste.
Process a base, add pieces of a second tile as re-spin for visible streaks, or as mix-in for a more uniform integration. Classic example: vanilla + dark chocolate flakes pre-frozen as a separate tile → natural stracciatella effect, controlled by you.
Tiles don't need to be consumed in one go. Break only half a bag for today's gelato, close the bag back up and return it to the freezer with its label. Next time use it whole, or add it as small pieces as re-spin to another recipe. No more wasted gelato, no more "I want a specific flavor but I didn't prep it".
1 kg bag of sweet cream: 500 g today for a full bowl, 250 g tomorrow as mix-in in a mango sorbet (= mango-cream sherbet), 250 g Saturday as a swirl in a chocolate gelato (= inverse stracciatella). One bag, three different desserts in three days.
CHILL TILES is a living method. Every recipe behaves differently, every freezer has slightly different temperatures, every user finds their own optimal setup. The guidance in this guide is the starting point, not the end point.
Start from these bases and experiment:
From here adjust based on your recipe. More fatty? Stays softer, freezes slower. More watery? Freezes harder, faster. Thinner? Breaks faster but uses more freezer surface. Thicker? More capacity but more time to freeze and to soften.
Join the ICED Method Facebook group — facebook.com/groups/icedmethod — where we talk every day about these things:
The community is the real added value of the method. Alone you go faster, together we go further.
CHILL TILES° is an experimental community-driven procedure, not described in the official Tefal/Moulinex Dolci or Ninja Creami manuals. Neither explicitly authorized nor forbidden: simply not contemplated by the manufacturers' official flow. We quote verbatim the relevant manual passages and indicate how the method positions itself relative to them:
CHILL TILES° is an experimental procedure developed by the ICED Method community. It has not been approved, validated or tested by Tefal, Moulinex, Ninja, nor by any vacuum sealer manufacturer. It has unknowns not yet clarified by deep testing: real storage duration with differently balanced bases, variability across freezer models, compatibility with bags of different brands.
Anyone applying the method does so at their own personal risk. Any damage to the machine, alterations to the product or storage issues are individual responsibility. For commercial or professional use, it is recommended to consult the machine manufacturer and adopt appropriate HACCP protocols.
Complete reference for extra containers, original spares, accessories and replacement parts for Moulinex Dolci, Tefal Dolci and Ninja Creami Deluxe. The market is evolving: original spares are limited, but the CHILL TILES method makes many accessories unnecessary.
They're the same machine with two different brands (Groupe SEB), so spares are interchangeable. Useful search queries: Moulinex Dolci replacement bowl, Tritan bowl spare Dolci, extra container Moulinex Dolci, Tefal Dolci spare parts, Moulinex Dolci accessories, extra bowls ice cream maker, bowl replacement Moulinex Dolci, spare parts Tefal Dolci, Ersatzteile Tefal Dolci, recambios Moulinex Dolci, pieces de rechange Tefal Dolci.
The Ninja Creami market is more mature because the machine has been on sale since 2021. Useful queries: extra pint Ninja Creami Deluxe, NC500 pint replacement, additional container Ninja Creami, 710 ml XL pint replacement, replacement pint Ninja Creami, deluxe pint container, Ninja Creami parts and accessories, Ninja Creami accessories.
The Pacojet is the reference machine of pastry labs. Useful queries: Pacojet beaker spare, Pacojet beaker, Pacotizing beaker, Pacojet 2 1L beaker, stainless steel Pacojet beaker, Pacojet 4 accessories, Pacojet blade, pacojet replacement parts.
The book 20 recipes for Moulinex Dolci, Tefal Dolci and Ninja Creami Deluxe is free, in PDF, with double-column ingredients 500ml/710ml. The bases you process with the CHILL TILES method work identically to the book recipes. Free community distribution.
Printable PDF in A4 format — perfect for kitchen consultation by the freezer. Also available in Italian, French, Spanish, German and Czech in the books section.
⬇ Download the free book~400 KB · 9 A4 pages