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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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.
Tillamook has a weird fluffly texture and would be good otherwise. I haven’t had Breyer in a while, but recall that is used to be good. The Ultra Premium, or whatever dumb name it has, at Aldi is good.
Breyer’s has become an unrecognizable watery filth
It’s a shame because they used to be pretty good a few decades ago.
Yeah. They used to be the OG good stuff. No more. 😢
That’s disappointing.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe consider getting sorbet or gelato next time?
Real gelato is soft.
Varies a lot by brand. Some brands started whipping more air into the chemical slurry they call ice cream in order it to rip us off. You can tell by the weight. Try the heavier pints.
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.
Several years ago when I lived in PA I frequented an independent ice cream shop that made their own in house. He complained about all the air added to commercial ice cream lately. He had a conversion rate for how many pounds a gallon should weigh and would weigh his containers to ensure he sold the correct amount. Some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had, and had exotic flavors too such as Kulfi (cardamom) and ginger. Search Nutz about Ice Cream in Bethlehem PA. I was just thinking about him the other day and his ginger ice cream. The eggnog at the end of the year is amazing too. The “regular” flavors year round are good as well. I know he ships across the country, I’ve never looked into it yet.
There are 2 types of ice cream:
Real ice cream, made with nothing more than milk, cream, sugar, and flavoring (vanilla, chocolate, whatever)
And bullshit ice cream that starts with a custard (aka Philly Style).
Real ice cream freezes hard, Philly style always stays softer.
Then there’s “overrun” which is a measure of how much air is trapped in the ice cream. Cheaper brands have higher overrun rates, and it makes ice cream softer.
French style starts with a custard. Philly style omits the egg yolks.
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.
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.
A lot of ice cream makers have started manufacturing a substance which is a little more like plastering putty with sugar mixed in. Presumably it is cheaper than the ice cream substance which they used to make.
I recommend Häagen-Dazs. Turkey Hill is alright but it seems to have succumbed a little bit to the putty consistency. The Costco stuff is decent too. Get vanilla, then mix it up in the bowl with a strong spoon, to soften it, with big chunky chocolate chips (also available from Costco) sprinkled generously within it and then stirred in during the preparation phase.
Hope this helps
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.
Sounds like your freezer isn’t actually getting cold enough for the ice cream. Semi-melted Tilamook will get whipped-esque if not cold enough. Put a digital thermometer in there for a while and see what temp it’s holding! No ice cream is “drop metal into it and it slides to the bottom” unless it’s not cold enough
As for ice cream consistency, afaik more cream content (which is better ice cream) will be softer at the same temperature compared to ice cream with more water content (shit ice cream). Breyers regular (I think they have a fancy attempt with more cream) is pretty watery, Tilamook is creamed up
(Do you notice a lot of frost on stuff? That is a sign of a bad seal and (humid) air is getting in)
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. 🤷🏻♂️
