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Ice cream in Melbourne, and how to tell the good from the ordinary

Melbourne is not short of places to buy ice cream. It is short of ways to tell, before you have paid, whether what you are holding is the real thing. Two things decide it, and both are printed on the back.

Read the name of the food, not the front of the pack

In Australia, ice cream is a defined food and the name carries a minimum dairy requirement with it. Frozen dessert is not the same thing. A tub can sit in the ice cream aisle, look like ice cream, and still legally be something else, which is how some very low numbers on the front get achieved. The front of the pack is where the marketing lives. The name of the food, on the back, is the part that has to be true.

Air is the cheapest ingredient in the freezer

Every ice cream has air whipped through it, and how much is the single biggest difference between a cheap tub and a good one. More air means more volume for less dairy, which is why some tubs feel like they collapse as you eat them. Less air means a denser, slower spoon. You can usually feel it before you can taste it.

Real dairy is the part doing the work

Cream and sugar carry the texture as much as the flavour. Take them out and something has to stand in for them, usually air, gums or sugar alcohols, and that is the mouthfeel people describe as thin or icy. Ours is made in Melbourne from 100% Australian dairy, with real cream and real sugar, by a maker that has been making ice cream since 1970.

The scoop shop and the freezer door are different questions

A scoop from a counter is an outing: you chose it, you queued for it, you are sitting down with it. A cup from a freezer door is a decision made in about four seconds, standing up, on the way to somewhere else. Almost everything written about ice cream in Melbourne is about the first one. The second is where most of it actually gets eaten, and it is judged on completely different things: does it hold together, is the serve honest, is it worth the money without a view attached.

What ours is, so you can compare it to anything else

A 120 mL single serve cup at 139 calories with 7g+ of protein, made with real dairy, real cream and real sugar. By flavour: Vanilla Bean Dream at 139 cal and 7.4 g, Chocolate Fix at 151 cal and 7.3 g, Caramel Cookie Smash at 139 cal and 7.2 g. The whole cup is the serve, so the number on the front is the number you eat rather than a fraction of it.

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