Experts Agree You Should Be Using This Ice Cream Scoop

Tomorrow is National Ice Cream Day, and ice cream shops around the country are gearing up for a weekend full of scooping. The annual holiday conveniently falls on what is often the hottest point in the summer — the third Sunday of July — making it a great excuse to go out and indulge in a frozen summer treat. If you’re joining in on the fun, we want to make sure you’re best equipped to scoop your ice cream, whether it’s your favorite grocery store pint or your famous homemade ice cream; there will be no spoons bent by rock-hard ice cream on our watch. So, we reached out to six ice cream experts for their advice on the best tool for scooping, and there was one clear winner.

Zeroll Original Ice Cream Scoop, 2-Ounce

Chances are, if you’ve ever been in an ice cream parlor, this is the scoop they were using behind the counter. The Zeroll is the quintessential ice cream scoop, and it’s a favorite of both ice cream professionals and at-home snackers — Ben & Jerry’s Associate Director of R&D Chris Rivard called it the “golden standard.” It has garnered over 4,800 five-star reviews on Amazon, and every ice cream expert we spoke to recommended this exact one for scooping like a pro.

Turns out, digging and chipping away at your rock-hard ice cream with a spoon “compresses all the air out” and ruins the texture, according to Amanda Hughes, founder of The Ice Cream Stand. Luckily, what sets this Zeroll scoop apart from the rest is the “heat-conductive fluid sealed within the handle, so you can scoop straight from the freezer and never have to worry about ice cream sticking to it,” says Andia Xouris, founder and CEO of Andia’s Ice Cream. Katie Sarna, co-founder and CEO of Benni Pops, agrees: “The heat-conductive handle helps you glide through even the hardest treats without needing to warm up your scoop or hit the gym first. It’s a classic for a reason!”

However, not all metal scoops are made equal. Eric Dorval, Gelato Master and owner of V Gelato & Café, says to avoid trigger scoops, because they “tend to break easily, especially if the ice cream is hard from being in the freezer a while.” The Zeroll doesn’t have any extra bits or bobs — just good, old-fashioned ice cream scoopage. Plus, the handle is made of metal all the way through, so there’s no need to worry about the tool bending or breaking mid-scoop. To get a perfectly round ball of ice cream, Amirah Kassem, co-founder of Hall Pass Ice Cream, keeps her Zeroll in warm water and scoops in an “S-shaped” path. “Using a metal scooper and keeping it in hot water” is the key to “the perfect cold scoop,” she says. 

Spare your spoons this National Ice Cream Day with the tool that all the experts swear by. Grab the Zeroll Original Ice Cream Scoop for $27.

Shop More Expert-Approved Ice Cream Scoops at Amazon

Zeroll Ice Cream Scoop, 2.5-Ounce

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FrostJoy Heated Ice Cream Scoop

LifHap Ice Cream Scoop

At the time of publishing, the price was $27.