So, you’re just about to launch a new season, you’ve visited Harrogate, you’ve seen all the delicious new flavours and are raring to get started on displaying your products for the world to see. But you’re unsure of one thing; how to appropriately display your ice cream or gelato in your cabinet and how it will behave once it’s in there.

Whist the composition of your cabinet serves a significant purpose in enticing customers to your carefully crafted ice cream or gelato, it can also impact how easy or difficult it is to serve.

Too hard to scoop

Often people complain that certain products are too hard to properly scoop. Generally, this affects recipes containing chocolate or nuts, due to their higher fat content than other flavours in the cabinet.

This fat content makes the product heavy, pushing out some of the air held in the ice cream. This isn’t ideal as it ultimately means that there is less product and, of course, less air makes it much harder to take a scoop through the product.

Too soft to scoop

On the other side of the coin, we have customers who find their ice cream or gelato too soft to scoop. The usual suspects for this issue tend to be flavours such as salted caramel or sorbets. The reason for this lies in their sugar content.

We add sugar to ice cream for two reasons, one is obviously to make it sweet and the second is to make it softer. Therefore, it goes without saying, the more sugar an ice cream has, the softer it will be. Sorbet, for example, can have recipes that include up to 28% sugar as opposed to 19% that traditional ice creams have (yours may vary!).

With salted caramel ice cream, you have the additional challenge of it containing caramel and salt, which typically add to the melting process, again leading to a much softer ice cream.

Overcoming serving issues

Ice cream that is too hard or too soft can clearly pose an issue when serving customers, but fear not, I have several tips and tricks to overcome these!

Issues with serving consistencies will often boil down to simply where you place the ice cream in your cabinet.

If you have your cabinet set to -16°c for example, you will find that although the centre remains this temperature (the area furthest away from the glass), the corners (where ice cream sits closer to the glass) will be closer to -15°c or even -14°c, as the glass allows heat to radiate within the cabinet.

Taking this into account, you will be able to strategically plan where your ice cream flavours will sit within the cabinet, based on their consistency. Harder ice creams such as chocolate or pistachio can take advantage of the additional warmth in the corners of a cabinet, where softer ice creams such as salted caramel or sorbet, can be kept towards the middle of the display, where temperatures are at their coldest.

There is a temptation to put your products in colour order within the cabinet, or even with the most popular in clearer view for your customers. There is nothing wrong with taking this approach as long as you have no problems scooping, but should you come across these issues, moving them to a different spot could make life much easier.

Adjusting your recipe   

If you are still struggling with your ice cream consistency, it may be time to adjust your recipe. Rather than changing your entire recipe, there is the simple option of including an additional ingredient when blending your flavour.

For harder chocolate ice creams, you can blend in Dextrose which will soften your ice cream without making it too sweet. Softer ice creams may benefit from the addition of double cream, which will provide a firmer consistency.

Looking after your cabinet

Let’s not forget about looking after our cabinets either, as this can make a significant difference. The entire cabinet should be cleaned regularly; and we don’t just mean the inside! You should consistently hoover the ventilation at the bottom of the cabinet to remove any build up of dust or debris.

Furthermore, it isn’t just us ice cream makers that need a break, your cabinet needs one too! Once a week I recommend emptying it and turning it off to give the compressor a well-earned rest.

As I have demonstrated above, making these small but critical changes to your cabinet can make the world of difference when it comes to serving your ice cream, providing a better product to your customers, and bringing them back time and time again.

I’d like to wish you all the best of luck for the new season ahead and I hope this has helped you think more closely about managing your cabinet. If you are still having trouble scooping, don’t be afraid to contact me for advice.

See you next time for the latest scoop!

Jonny