I decided to purchase store bought ice cream after years of just buying from places like Cold Stone. It seems to me most ice cream manufacturers have very soft ice cream now despite storing it in a freezer for a week straight. I could easily drop a spoon in the tub and watch it cut straight through to the bottom. The consistency is now kind of disgusting because it feels like I’m eating whipped cream instead of something that should be semi solid. So far I’ve tried Tillamook, Dryer’s, and Target’s in house brand and they all have that same mushy texture.
Before anyone suggests it’s my freezer, I’ve kept it relatively uncluttered and everything else stays frozen just fine. I also make sure not to purchase those tubs of “Frozen Dairy Dessert”. What happened? Is this some cost cutting measure or are customer’s preferences really going to extremely soft textures?
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Cold Stone is soft because they slap it around on that cold slab of stone before they put it in a cup or cone.
IDK what could be wrong with your store bought. Or maybe what’s right… The last few times I’ve gotten some ice cream, shits rock hard and full of ice crystals from having been melted and refrozen god knows how many times. Maybe your freezer is set too high for the ice cream but not the other things you keep?
I do know a trick to find what ice cream has better ingredients though. Find two or more brands in the same size container, and then see which one actually weighs more. They’ll all be in ounces or some fluid measurement, and the weight will be heavier in the ones with fewer fillers like if it was only made using cream, eggs and sugar.
i think ice cream shops in general keep their ice cream at higher temperatures than a typical residential freezer. our freezers at home are super cold for maximum preservation, but ice cream shops are more concerned about optimum ice cream consistency for single servings.
Experimenting with the freezer’s settings didn’t cause too much of a change with the ice cream’s texture. Max and minimum temperatures had pretty much no impact. I’ve even opened the tub right after purchasing and it still had the same issue. If the store’s freezers couldn’t keep it somewhat solid, then I can only assume it’s deliberately been made this way now.
Sorry you’re having this issue. It doesn’t line up with my recent experiences with ice cream. I’d recommend trying a different freezer (or multiple different freezers) with the same brand and see if the hardness is different. My bet is it’s not cold enough.
Where are you finding this magic ice-cream. I fucking love soft fluffy ice-cream but everything i buy turns to stone in short order.
You may also have a freezer not working correctly: should follow OP’s recommendation of de-cluttering, but also clean the door seal and make sure it’s in good shape, and remove any ice accumulation.
Most consumer freezers will run a de-icing stage. They intentionally warm up for a little bit to melt accumulated ice. However when you melt ice cream then refreeze without churning, it freezes harder. A non-cluttered freezer should complete its de-icing without melting ice cream. A freezer with an effective door seal will have more consistent temperatures (and use less energy), without melting ice cream.
Alternatively, many chest freezers do not have a de-icing cycle so ice cream should remain softer despite the lower temperature those run at. Unfortunately I can’t claim to have verified this because ice cream gets consumed too quickly and never makes it to the chest freezer
I’m actually using a cheat freezer, it’s brand new too lol. I’m pretty sure the ice-cream gods just hate me
The ice cream I buy is always either so hard your spoon bends or so soft I have to check if the freezer is working. Idk if it’s a brand thing or what.
Could be your freezer cycling up and down. Mine gets real warm right after I load in a week of groceries. I also should probably store more stuff in the freezer for thermal mass.
Do buy in bulk and until recently we only had the little freezer on top of the fridge, so that could very well be it.
Luckly we just recently got one of our big freezers moved into the basement and just got another old one.
I fill milk cartons with water and freeze to fill the voids. Added benefit of having ice blocks for camping/tailgating.
I suppose people complained? Or it’s the substitution of fat for some god awful synth version.
I find Haagan Dazs stays pretty solid. Ben and Jerry’s too. But even then, it’s only just.
Carte d’Or and all its kin I find the same as you, so soft as to be no longer ‘ice’ cream, but rather some sort of sickly sweet whipped soup.
Ice cream can’t take a joke these days. Just starts melting down and turning into a puddle at the slightest provocation. Soft.
Just to clarify, what temperature do you set your freezer at and does it stay that temp of do you notice it fluctuating more than a few degrees throughout the day?
I don’t have a thermocouple to slide into the freezer but I can confidently say water and even broth (which should have a freezing point depression due to the added salt) stays frozen no matter what temperature setting I pick and the time of day. It’s very likely then that it stays below 0 degrees C.
Freezers average -15 to -20C. Saying that your freezer temp is below 0 is like saying your fridge is above 0 - there’s a wide range there, and doesn’t give us much info to work with.
I have this problem every so often. If your freezer is anything like mine, you just keep grabbing ice cream during, or even right after, a defrost cycle. That, or there’s something wrong with the defrost cycle itself. Best check your meters and gauges
You want Trader Joe’s. That stuff is so hard that I often use a hot scoop to get it out. I’m OK with a slightly softer texture. Tillamook is my go-to brand. I’ve never found it to be absurdly soft, but it is easier to scoop than a Häagen-Dazs or TJ’s.
I usually have to set mine out for a while to not bend my spoon, and we usually just get whatever’s on sale or store brand. 🤷🏻♂️
By your ice cream based on weight. You can’t get away from the additives that make it a little fluffier but you can get away from the overturned extra air filled batches. In the mid-eastern US Turkey Hill brand is pretty decently solid. I’ve also noticed some of the five ingredient only ice creams are solid. Then you have stuff like Häagen-Dazs.
Of course store-bought ice cream is soft. Have you noticed that they sell ice cream by volume and not by weight? They just add some more stabilizers, and basically “blow up” the mass with Nitrogen. Every liter of Nitrogen is a liter of ice cream more sold. Basically profit from the air. It is hard to get a cheaper ingredient except maybe water. And that is a bit harder to conceal.
Before anyone suggests it’s my freezer, I’ve kept it relatively uncluttered and everything else stays frozen just fine. I also make sure not to purchase those tubs of “Frozen Dairy Dessert”. What happened? Is this some cost cutting measure or are customer’s preferences really going to extremely soft textures?
It’s both. Commercial ice cream is either overchurned to add more air, making it lighter and softer, or uses a lot of additives. You have to buy “premium” brands to get real ice cream, or get it from a local ice cream place.
It also sounds like your freezer is not cold enough. I know because I’m dealing with a similar issue. My freezer is cold enough to keep everything frozen, except ice cream. My freezer was only getting down to 20°F which is cold enough for most things, but ice cream needs 0°F to stay frozen/hard. It’s time to buy a new freezer.
Yes.
Many products are now whipped to increase the volume with less product as a form of shrinkflation and/or include ingredients to reduce ice crystal formation from repeated melting and refreezing to reduce waste and the impact of understaffing in supply chains and grocery stores that lead to product being left out for extended periods. Haagen Dazs recently finally converted all of their flavors. The plain vanilla and vanilla swiss almond were a few of the last ones to change. But it’s been a slow progression of different manufacturers over the last couple of decades really.
It’s sad because ice cream is my favorite dessert. I eat a lot of it, or at least used to. There are only a few brands with a few flavors remaining that make good “hard” ice cream outside of ice cream shops. But the good shops are so expensive.
Start making your own. It’s so fun and rewarding.
Might depend on the flavor as much as anything else. I buy the Tillamook Mountain Huckleberry from time to time and never noticed it being soft.
Ingredients are pretty much what I expect from any good ice cream:
https://www.tillamook.com/products/ice-cream/mountain-huckleberry
“Cream, Skim Milk, Milk, Sugar, Huckleberries, Water, Pasteurized Egg Yolks, Cornstarch, Guar Gum, Vanilla Extract, Citric Acid, Tara Gum, Natural Flavor, Fruit Juice (color).”
I can buy some ice cream and put it in my freezer, and it’s extremely soft, I can just put a spoon in it with no resistance. I put that exact same ice cream in my parents freezer and it gets so hard that I can’t even scoop it with an ice cream scoop unless I let it thaw out for a few minutes. The temperature it’s stored at absolutely plays a huge difference.
Assuming 1) you want things to be colder, 2) your budget can accommodate a bit of extra electricity usage and 3) the following actually exists on your appliance, many freezers have a dial somewhere that can be used to set the temperature.
Sometimes it’s coupled to the setting for an attached refrigerator section. Sometimes, yes, it’s an unchangeable setting whether there are other settings elsewhere or not. Might still be worth double-checking.
I always set freezers at -18°C (because that’s the best temp for Jägermeister)
All ice cream (and related desserts) will get harder as they get colder. This is because more water freezes and the fat viscosity increases. If your ice cream isn’t hard enough, your freezer isn’t cold enough.
Take a reliable thermometer and check the temp of your ice cream tub. Is be willing to bet it’s a lot warmer than the USDA recommended 0°F (253 K).
All ice cream (and related desserts) will get harder as they get colder.
It feels like you’re comparing ice cream/desserts that are completely frozen to ice cream/desserts that are partially frozen, which is not what this post is about…
Although if the ice cream does get slightly liquidy before re-freezing, it will be much harder than it was before. This is why one of the most important factors when making ice cream is to continually mix up the ice cream while it freezes.
