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soft serve

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Also known as soft serve ice cream, Mr. Whippy, soft ice cream

type of ice cream that is softer than regular ice creams as a result of air being introduced during freezing

Wikidata facts

Subclass of
ice cream
Country of origin
United States
Material used
drinking water
Image
Black sesame soft ice cream.jpg
Show 5 more facts
Commons category
Soft serve
Unicode character
🍦
time period
1930s
inception
1930-00-00
native label
soft serve
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~11 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Soft serve in an ice cream cone Soft serve, also known as soft ice cream, is a frozen dessert and variety of ice cream, similar to conventional ice cream, but softer and less dense due to more air being introduced during freezing. Soft serve has been sold commercially since the late 1930s in the United States.

In the United States, soft serve is not typically sold prepackaged in supermarkets but is common at fairs, carnivals, amusement parks, restaurants (especially fast food and buffet), and specialty shops. All ice cream must be frozen quickly to avoid crystal growth. With soft serve, this is accomplished by a special machine that holds pre-mixed product at a very low, but not frozen, temperature at the point of sale.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “soft serve” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.