Beware of ‘Scooper’s Arm’ — This Is the Right Way to Scoop Ice Cream

I worked as an ice cream scooper at Baskin-Robbins for two years in high school. In addition to a visceral aversion to the smell of waffle cones being made, I left that job with some handy skills and tricks I still use today. 

I’ll admit that when I got the job, I wondered, “How hard could it be? It’s just scooping ice cream.” I quickly learned that the answer is “very hard.” I started at the beginning of the summer — peak busy season — and after about a month, developed what the staff affectionately called “scooper’s arm.” For those unfamiliar with the affliction, scooper’s arm is an achy, fatigued feeling in the trapezius muscle, forearm, and wrist brought on by repeated improper scooping technique.

What I didn’t know until months later is that there’s a right and a wrong way to scoop ice cream, something a veteran scooper eventually taught me. And while the risk of scooper’s arm is much lower at home than, say, at a Baskin-Robbins, the way you scoop ice cream can affect the texture, melt rate, and overall eating experience of ice cream. 

Why most people scoop ice cream the wrong way

Because ice cream is usually pretty hard, you generally have to put some muscle behind your scoop. Most people’s instinct is to dig in the scoop’s tip and pull it towards them, resulting in a curl of ice cream. This is not ideal for a few reasons. One, this is how you get a scooper’s arm; that downward pressure and drag puts undue stress on your muscles and joints, and reduces your control. (We’ve all accidentally launched a shard of too-hard ice cream across the counter while trying to gouge the surface.)

But it also affects the quality of the ice cream. The curl method vastly increases the scoop’s surface area and leaves a pocket of air inside, which makes your ice cream melt much faster. At the same time, you’re getting less ice cream.  

How to scoop ice cream to avoid scooper’s arm

So, what’s the right way to scoop ice cream? “Don’t dig and twist…let the sharp ice cream scoop do the work for you,” says Tyler Malek, Salt & Straw cofounder and head ice cream innovator.

The method I learned for the optimal scoop starts with gently lifting a small piece of ice cream, then scraping from all directions into the middle, using the scoop’s curvature to pack the ice cream into a circle around the center — think of making a snowball. If you press firmly and keep pulling ice cream in short, shallow strokes into one center mass, you’ll end up with a dense ball of ice cream — without air pockets — that is actually a sphere.

This method of short pulls to the center is much easier on your arms, and it also gives you more control. You’re pulling ice cream into a mass so you have a natural stop point, rather than yanking a scoop across the surface and only stopping when you flip a chunk out or ram into the side of the carton. Malek suggests taking out some extra insurance by putting your ice cream in the fridge for about 45 minutes, softening it slightly for easier scooping. 

The real benefit of this method for the casual at-home scooper is the eating experience. The snowball approach packs the ice cream in and makes it round, which keeps it colder longer and confines melting to the top layer. This ball has much less surface area, so everything stays the same temperature and therefore tastes the same.

The best type of ice cream scoop 

The type of ice cream scoop you use also plays an important role in proper scooping. Regis Duffy, vice president of shops at Jeni’s Ice Creams, who got his start slinging scoops in Jeni’s scoop shops, recommends an oval scoop. “The wide side of the scoop allows you to create a rounder, fuller shape,” he says. Duffy also suggests keeping the surface level to ensure the ice cream isn’t exposed to oxygen for longer than necessary. “Oftentimes, people use the narrow end of the scoop to dig down into a bucket and burrow further and further in.” 

Duffy recommends the Zeroll 2-ounce ice cream scoop for its rounded tip (this is Malek’s favorite, too, and won out in our ice cream scoop tests). “Avoid the scoops with a pointy tip since those just tweak your wrist awkwardly, and especially avoid those ‘trigger scoops’ [with built-in levers]; those are made for portioning cookie dough, not ice cream,” Malek says.