This Is The Secret To Scooping Ice Cream Like A Pro

In the summer heat, there's nothing more refreshing than ice cream. From birthday parties to build-your-own sundae nights with friends, ice cream will always be the star of the show when it comes to frozen desserts. Sometimes, though, scooping ice cream can be a pain. The ice cream can be too hard in the carton, leaving you with wrist pain and small, broken chunks of ice cream. For that perfect, Instagram-worthy ice cream scoop every time, try making an "S" shape with your ice cream scooper as you go.

Why does this work? For one, the outside of the ice cream is where the frozen dessert will melt first, so making an "S" shape across the top and edges of the carton will allow you to eat the most melted portion of the ice cream first, and save your wrist in the process. The "S" shape is also ideal for creating the iconic, spherical scoops we all know and love, as the back-and-forth motion pushes the ice cream into shape with minimal effort.

To create the perfect scoop of ice cream, first, make sure that your ice cream isn't freezer-burnt. To keep ice cream perfectly scoopable, you can store your ice cream in a large Ziploc bag in the freezer. This will help prevent those undesirable ice crystals from forming and keep your ice cream soft, smooth, and creamy. Even if you're using a Ziploc bag, freezer burn can also come from the way you scoop ice cream. While you might think that heating your ice cream scooper in hot water will make things easier, a hot scoop will actually ruin your ice cream because it will melt the surrounding ice cream, leading to ice crystal formation later on in the freezer.

Once you've settled on your ice cream flavor, grab your ice cream scoop and scrape it alongside the edges of the ice cream carton using the "S" motion. Do this motion slowly, consistently, and with a slightly firm, constant pressure. As you turn the ice cream scoop around each corner of the "S" shape, rotate your wrist in a smooth motion. Now that you've mastered the perfect way to scoop ice cream, you can pre-scoop and freeze ice cream for easy party prep, storing the pre-made ice cream scoops in the freezer until they're needed.