Soft serve is ice cream magic, so lush and airy it cannot be scooped and must be churned to order until it barely holds its shape. It’s not destined for tubs sitting in freezers but for enjoying immediately, as soon as it’s swirled straight from a machine into your cone — the frozen delight that affirms living for the now.
In Los Angeles, soft serve thrives on both nostalgia and novelty: classic chocolate dips; swirls of flavors in pomegranate, pineapple, guava, ube and more; ice cream cones with cereal rims; Asian griddled pastries lined with custard or Nutella and then filled with the soft stuff. It’s hard to find a cooler, more affordable summertime snack when triple-digit heat strikes.
Cool off this season with our ongoing guide to the best frozen treats in Los Angeles.
The origin story of soft serve begins on the East Coast: Carvel, Taylor Co. and Dairy Queen all lay claim to inventing soft serve machines in the late 1920s and early ’30s. But it has its L.A. roots too. After World War II, entrepreneur George Foster bought rights to open Dairy Queen stores in California, but because of restrictions on use of the word “dairy” he instead launched Fosters Freeze. The first location opened on La Brea Avenue in Inglewood in 1946 and still serves sundaes, parfaits, shakes, Twisters and cones made with what it calls California soft serve.
What distinguishes soft serve is primarily the percentage of “overrun” in the final product — that’s ice cream parlance for the amount of air. You want enough air so that it’s light, smooth and creamy. The less air in ice cream, the more dense it is (frozen custard has relatively low overrun), but too much air and the flavor is compromised. Soft serve mixtures also have less butterfat than ice cream so that it’s lighter, and stabilizers prevent it from melting within seconds. It’s churned at relatively higher temperatures, which is also why it’s not firm — a pillowier fantasy version of ice cream.
Here’s where all our soft serve dreams are coming true lately. — Betty Hallock