The Real Difference Between Ice Cream And Soft Serve

Maybe ice cream season is winding down, but we’re not done with it yet (especially with flavors like “Puppy Chow” hitting the shelves). But as we go for our final cups and cones, there’s always a big question in the back of our minds: what’s the difference between soft serve and regular ice cream? 

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Of course, one easy way to tell the difference between soft serve and ice cream is to check out the biceps and triceps of the ice cream parlor staff toward the end of the season. Seriously, ask anyone who’s spent even a summer scooping―ice cream requires serious brawn. Soft serve, on the other hand, requires the kind of social delicacy of softly (no pun intended) looking away as you both endure the slow, swirling, hypnotic dispensing of your treat. But turns out there’s more to it than that, and it begins with one word: fat. 

Milky Fat

Milk fat, to be specific. To be fair, milk fat is really just fat that comes from milk, so in effect we’re dealing with the percentage of fat to everything else in the ice cream or soft serve mixture before it churns. And the ingredients begin pretty similarly: dairy, sugar, flavor, swirls, fudge chunks, etc. (Get egg yolks involved, you’re in custard town, baby―and, to some of us, at least, it’s not a bad place to be.)

Actually, ice cream can also contain a small amount of egg, but most recipes only use it (if at all) as a stabilizer or for the tiniest bit of added richness. Soft serve doesn’t traditionally contain eggs. (And just, one more time for the record, frozen custard can beat soft serve on its worst day.) Beyond maybe a trace of egg in an ice cream recipe, you’ll definitely find a higher proportion of fat―a minimum of 10% (whereas soft serve fat content stays in the single digits). 

The Churning Process Differs, Too

Ice cream and soft serve also differ in the way they’re prepared: ice cream, being the more old school (even pre-mechanization) treat is made by churning what’s effectively a pastry cream into delicious, crystallized frigidity. And then we store it in things like gallon-plus containers or pints. 

Soft serve, you may have noticed, is never scooped (unlike gelato). Soft serve is born in, mixed in, churned in, dispensed from the same machine. Even if it’s mixed in a separate container, it becomes soft serve in the machine and stays in the machine until dispensing, held at a constant cold (below freezing) temp to ensure cold, but still smooth, swirls of chocolate, vanilla, or a swirl of both. 

Fun fact: both soft serve and ice cream are aerated by the churning process, but there are limits. Soft serve is always going to have more air churned into it than ice cream, but ice cream is, per the FDA, limited as to how much air they’re really allowed to pump in there.

Ever picked up a container of ice cream and noticed it felt just… way lighter? Yeah, that’s an ice cream maker nearing the limit of shrinkflation.