The people who work at ice cream parlors have a completely different set of concerns than
home ice cream fans. For parlors the appearance of a scoop is paramount, scooping speed is
important and getting the greatest number of scoops from a three-gallon container means more profits. Still, we can all benefit from a few techniques the professionals prefer:

The temp for tempering – The pros make sure their ice cream is properly tempered, or brought to the right temperature for scooping. Ice cream stores best at -5° F. and below, but scoops best between 0° and +10°. The colder temperatures make ice cream too hard for scooping, and higher temps will cause ice cream to stick to the scoop.

The straight scoop – When scooping frequently, ice cream can cause a scoop to become cold and sticky. One of the best ways to solve this is to use a scoop filled with a liquid anti-freezing agent. Frequent rinsing also helps.

Start on the edge – The natural tendency is to scoop ice cream from the middle of the container first, but the smarter approach is to begin scooping at the edge of the container and work inward. This prevents warm air from attacking the scraps of ice cream remaining on the sides of the container, and harming their flavor.

Scoop by layers – Working through the container one scoop’s depth at a time…rather than heading for the bottom and getting the sides later…keeps the tiny bubbles of air in ice cream from being compressed out. By maintaining more air in every scoop, the parlor owner gets more scoops from every container. It doesn’t make any difference in the flavor of the product, but it really makes a difference at the cash register!