An Ice Cream Scoop That Holds Up

Realizing that I enjoy having ice cream as an after-dinner dessert is something I discovered a long time ago. As great as it is to go to Baskin Robbins to taste some new flavors and get a cone of something, it just isn’t economical to do all the time. That’s also one of the reasons why I don’t go to a coffee shop to get a drink every day. The cost just adds up so quickly. Baskin Robbins also sells pre-packaged quarts and most grocery stores have a good variety of some decent flavors to take home too. That is how I enjoy my ice cream now, at home, in a bowl, with as many scoops as I feel like having! (Okay, it’s kind of fun to buy cones sometimes too, but usually I’ll go with the classic bowl and spoon method because it’s easier to eat without a mess.)

Eating ice cream at home always used to come with one major hiccough for me though: How to get the cold ice cream into the bowl. I’ve tried big spoons, small spoons, melon ballers, knives, and all of the above both with and without running the utensil under hot water. No matter what I’ve tried, it’s been a struggle. The hot water sort of helped temporarily…sometimes, but nothing was good enough to get me past the dread of serving the ice cream.

…until

I finally got an ice cream scoop. First off, let me mention that in addition to the spoons, knives, etc, I did buy some crummy $5-10 ice cream scoops from the grocery store, but after destroying them by bending their necks 90 degrees, I miserably went back to the spoons in my kitchen (which by the way are also mostly all bent now).

So let’s try this again. Nothing got me past the dread of serving ice cream…

…until

I got a proper ice cream scoop, the original liquid-filled Zeroll ice cream scoop! I really should have realized this earlier in life (I really wish I had for the sake of all my kitchen spoons), but the ice cream parlors use a special scoop. I always just thought it was something expensive that they’d buy at a specialty store for industrial kitchen supplies. It really isn’t hard to find and it really isn’t expensive.

The best part is that it’s really amazing because it works like it’s supposed to. I don’t know if there’s magic involved and it’s using up heat from somewhere, but it cuts through cold ice cream like thawed butter. As a sweet bonus, it’s also really good at making pretty ball shapes, you know, like scoops of ice cream. (After so many years of using spoons and knives, I was used to whatever shape of ice cream I could chisel out.)

[Note: If you want to read how it works, you can see a patent for a heat-transfer scoop “here“]

This is not dishwasher safe, which is something I take into serious consideration before purchasing anything. Unless something is very pretty or very practical, if it isn’t dishwasher safe, it doesn’t make it into my kitchen. In this case, the ice cream scoop falls under the very practical category. As a note, I’ve also never struggled to clean it. After scooping ice cream, give it a bit of a rinse under warm water and maybe use your fingers to gently wipe it if you don’t want to wait for any ice cream bits to melt (you can definitely do it using only hot water without using your fingers if you don’t mind waiting an extra five seconds). Afterwards, give it a quick wipe with a bit of paper towel or dishcloth and it’s good to put back in the cutlery drawer.

I hate washing dishes by hand, but I do find it kind of fun to wash this since I get to play around by redirecting the water. It makes me feel young again which is exactly the experience I’m hoping for when I’m about to enjoy ice cream.

If you ever eat ice cream at home, which I recommend that you do, this is 100% a good investment. I wish I knew that I could get it before I ever wasted money on grocery store cheap flimsy junk and before bent all my serving and soup spoons. Oh well, lesson learned. Don’t make the same mistake I did.