The Only Ice Cream Scoop That The Founder of Jeni’s Ice Creams Ever Uses
Jeni’s Ice Creams founder Jeni Britton Bauer has made thousands of batches of ice cream in her life. Along the way, she’s tried out every ice cream recipe, maker and scoop you can think of and has developed a few favorites. She shared some of her ice cream essentials when she stopped by the F&W Test Kitchen to make her Peach Melbas.
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Her absolute favorite ice cream flavor:
Since founding Jeni’s in 2002, Britton Bauer has developed hundreds of flavors, but her absolute favorite is the Lemon Buttermilk Frozen Yogurt. “It’s so simple and the yogurt is both super cold and refreshing while remaining creamy,” she says. “It’s just really elegant and it might be the most perfect thing we do because of the utter simplicity. When you hit on something like that, those are the best flavors.”
The simplest ice cream maker to use at home:
“With my recipe I always like to go with the cheapest machine,” says Britton Bauer. “One that I love right now is the White Mountain maker that uses rock salt and ice and you have to crank it. It really works great and it don’t take very long, assuming you crank in the right direction, of course.”
White Mountain Hand Cranked Ice Cream Maker, $123 (originally $180) at amazon.com
The one ice cream scoop she always uses:
Britton Bauer loves to use avocado spoons for pulling ice cream out of pint containers and then using the spoon, or even a knife, to actually cut the ice cream. “What you don’t want to do with ice cream is smush it,” she says. “I love the hard body aspect of the ice cream and I want it to start hard and then melt.” However, when Britton Bauer needs a scoop, there’s only one she reaches for. “It’s always a Zeroll scoop, we use them in our shops and they’re the best.”
Zeroll 1020 Original Ice Cream Easy Scoop, $19 at amazon.com
The best advice for making ice cream at home:
Making ice cream isn’t overly complicated, but Britton Bauer says a lot of people try to make the process too complex. Instead, she recommends starting simply and experimenting from there. “Start with a simple flavor and get to know the process,” she says. “Sweet cream is one of my other favorites and it’s perfect on a slice of pie or with some poached fruit. From there, you can do whatever you want.”
The one kitchen tool she always has within arms reach:
“I always have a fork around, I seriously use one for everything,” says Britton Bauer. “I just started keeping them around at some point and now it’s become a thing. Forks just work for so many things! I even keep a jar of them in my ice cream kitchen.”
