>From the Los Angeles Times
TOOL DEPARTMENT
Today's best ice cream scoops
There are dozens of ice cream scoops on the market. They come in an
amusing array of colors and shapes, and they employ very different
strategies to tackle di****ng out that hard-frozen ice cream.
By Emily Dwass
Special to The Times
August 1, 2007
All the way home on the freeway, the sun beats through the wind****eld,
and the only thing that keeps you smiling through the enervating
August afternoon is the reward in your freezer: a pint of sweet, cold
ice cream. But when you open the freezer door and take out the carton,
the ice cream is so solidly frozen your biggest spoon barely makes a
dent. There's got to be an easier way. But what is it?
There are dozens of ice cream scoops on the market, most for less than
$20, and they not only come in an amusing array of colors and shapes,
but they also employ very different strategies to tackle what seems to
be a simple problem -- di****ng out that hard-frozen ice cream with
attractive results.
I tested seven popular and widely available ice cream scoops,
including new-this-year models from KitchenArt and Calphalon, a few
that have been on the market for several years, and one classic, the
Zeroll, that dates from the 1930s. My priority was finding a tool that
could really dig into super-hard ice cream without exerting a lot of
force (I'm a weakling). The scoopers also were judged by how
comfortable they were to use and by whether their design innovations
translated into performance. Also considered was the appearance of the
ice cream once it landed in the bowl -- were there handsome spheres or
messy little slabs? The tools had to prove themselves without benefit
of head starts such as running them under hot water or letting the ice
cream sit out to soften.
Ice cream scoops, old-school and new, can be divided into two
categories. They're either non-mechanical diggers that require some
elbow grease or low- to high-tech ones that have a gadget or other
short cut. Most diggers, which are basically little shovels, now have
ergonomic handles for optimum comfort. The gadget-oriented scoops can
have ingenious features: levers, warming devices and carefully
engineered business ends.
The best overall scoop I tested was the simple but well-designed
KitchenArt; it's a champion at skating through super-hard ice cream.
Least impressive was Deni's plug-in ice cream scoop that warms a large
upright spoon, with predictably gooey results. Calphalon's three-petal
scoop is unique and tested well, allowing for a lovely presentation of
ice cream but requiring some muscle. It came in behind Cuisinart's
colorful and inexpensive but burly chrome-plated scoop that's perfect
for the heavy-duty assembly scooping. Several other models performed
well enough, but their quirky features didn't make enough of a
difference to justify seeking them out.
Form and function
Some scoops are so cool-looking they could hold their own in an art
gallery. In fact, one dipper, the Zeroll, is on display at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York. Patented by Ohio businessman Sherman Kelly
in 1935, the Zeroll has a hollow handle filled with antifreeze-like
self-defrosting liquid. When you grasp the handle, the heat from your
hand transfers internally to the scooper. The new incarnations of the
Zeroll are available in high-grade aluminum or nonstick Teflon. I
tried the aluminum one and found the thick handle a comfortable grasp.
But it still was challenging for me to form round spheres of ice
cream. The scoop's surface also immediately became marred by scratches
and water spots.
I had no complaints about that new KitchenArt scoop, discovered when I
spotted two little kids playing at a store display with the cheery
green and blue gel-grip diggers. It's easy to see why the kids were
intrigued -- this scoop looks like a cross between an action figure
and a Barbie doll. The handle has a nice, squishy grasp, which made it
wonderful for serious shoveling, and the end result was a bowl filled
with inviting spheres of ice cream.
For pure entertainment value, the Deni Electric Ice Cream Scoop is a
hoot: The severe silver-and-black design seems to be channeling Darth
Vader. But evidently I didn't shovel fast enough, and the heat caused
the ice cream to melt as I scooped. There were puddles in the bowl and
soupy streaks left to refreeze in the carton. That's no fun -- and fun
is the one thing scooping ice cream should be.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-tool1aug01,1,7651672.story?coll=la-headlines-food
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