How To Transform Ice Cream Into Soft Serve

The unstoppable allure of soft serve ice cream is one that has stood the test of time. Dating back to the 1930s in Illinois (though a seller in New York claimed to have stumbled onto it at the same time when his machine broke down), this sweet summer treat is nostalgic and refreshing, to the extent that it has turned us all into Pavlov's dog, sprinting down the street whenever the ice cream truck's jingle sounds.

But what happens when the ice cream truck is nowhere to be found? How do you satisfy that creamy vanilla craving without one of those industrial machines to pump it out? (Which might actually be a hotbed for bacteria, anyway.) Thankfully, you can make an approximation of soft serve at home with one easy hack. All you have to do is add store-bought ice cream to a stand mixer, and blend it with the paddle attachment on low until it reaches a soft, even texture. It won't look exactly like soft serve, but if you wanted to go the extra step, you could add it to a pastry bag and pipe it into a cone for a similar appearance.

You might not know this, but soft serve isn't technically considered ice cream. Though both ice cream and soft serve are made from cream, milk, and sugar (along with other additives), soft serve usually contains less milk fat than ice cream, around 5% compared to ice cream's required 10%. However, there is more air whipped into it, accounting for that lighter-than-air mouthfeel, which is why whipping your ice cream in a stand mixer can help achieve a comparable texture. (Though commercial soft serve may also contain stabilizers to keep it from flattening out.)

When soft serve is prepared commercially, this higher air content is achieved through a unique process. The soft serve base is churned and then stored at not-quite-freezing temperatures. At the last second, when it is ready to be served, it is frozen and churned again as it is pumped out into your cone. This is why you don't see soft serve for sale in the grocery store — it needs a professional machine.

If you want to make homemade soft serve from scratch, you can do that, too. Just remember that, as with the blender method, you're going to want to serve this immediately; otherwise, it will melt back into a milky mess. There are a few ways to do it: First, you can start with a simple vanilla ice cream, and, once made and set (or bought from the store), combine it with whipped heavy cream and sugar. Then freeze it in a plastic bag, and once it's frozen, massage it to get it smooth and squeezable. Just cut a hole in the corner of the plastic bag and pipe it out!

But you don't really need ice cream to start with at all. You can mix heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, and vanilla in a bag, then put that bag into a larger one that has ice and rock salt. Shake the bags until frozen, and enjoy as you please. There are also more involved recipes involving crushed dry ice and a stand mixer, but no matter how you choose to go about it, you're probably one shopping trip away from an easy, homemade cone of soft serve.