Ask Lemmy

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. 🤷🏻‍♂️

You want Trader Joe's. That stuff is so hard that I often use a hot scoop to get it out. I'm OK with a slightly softer texture. Tillamook is my go-to brand. I've never found it to be absurdly soft, but it is easier to scoop than a Häagen-Dazs or TJ's.

Happy when I get ice cream that doesn't take 10 minutes to thaw enough to not bend spoons. Never seen anything close to what you've described though; just soft enough that you can generally eat it with some force straight from the freezer.

I had I think tillamook and hagan dazs stacked on top of eachother in my freezer. The hagan dazs was brick hard and the tillamook remained soft and easy to serve. I prefer soft but if you don’t like it give hagan dazs a try.

By your ice cream based on weight. You can't get away from the additives that make it a little fluffier but you can get away from the overturned extra air filled batches. In the mid-eastern US Turkey Hill brand is pretty decently solid. I've also noticed some of the five ingredient only ice creams are solid. Then you have stuff like Häagen-Dazs.

I have this problem every so often. If your freezer is anything like mine, you just keep grabbing ice cream during, or even right after, a defrost cycle. That, or there's something wrong with the defrost cycle itself. Best check your meters and gauges

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.