My local grocery store has started stocking a “limited edition” apple pie ice cream (message me for the details, don’t want to be shilling). It’s one of my favorites – not only does it have chunks of real apple and graham cracker crust, but the ice cream itself has a delicious apple flavor. The whole thing tastes like you took a slice of apple pie with vanilla ice cream and blended it chunky style.

I always figured there was some boring food-science reason you couldn’t make a decent apple ice cream, but this shows it’s perfectly possible. So why isn’t it more common? Apple pie is one of the most popular deserts, and you find apple flavoring in plenty of drinks and candies. What gives?

  • @[email protected]
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    101 hour ago

    Making ice cream with actual apples involved is a nightmare due to acidity influencing other ingredients. But making it apple-scented is trivial.

    But you raised a very good question…

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️
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    26 minutes ago

    I really wish I had one of those fancy ice cream makers like they have on cooking shows like Iron Chef because I would definitely see what happens if you tried to make apple ice cream. I don’t know if I can get fancier than just basic ingredients with mine… Maybe if I made an apple compote? 🤔

    I think it just works better making apple pie ala mode ice cream Cold Stone style with some vanilla ice cream, pie filling, graham cracker crust and caramel.

  • @beebarfbadger
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    243 hours ago

    Because it’s too expensive to crunch up a whole iPhone just for one cone.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 hours ago

    I’ve recently had a similar discussion on why orange ice cream isn’t that popular, but exists in form of water ice

    Our conclusion was that acidic flavors, like orange and apple just aren’t good combined with cream, instead being better served as a sorbet

  • @Deestan
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    21 hour ago

    I’d love if it was more popular!

    Mighy try and make at home. Parfait ice cream is reasonably uncomplicated. Wonder if I should make it from dried apples.

  • Swordgeek
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    62 hours ago

    Little boutique place near us has an “Apple Cheddar Pie” ice cream in the fall. It’s never quite as good as you expect. Gotta try it again this year, to see how they’ve changed it.

    (On the other hand, their Lemon Curd Blueberry is one of the greatest things ever served in a cone in the history of humankind.)

  • Altima NEO
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    11 hour ago

    It’s probably not as common because other flavors are significantly more popular. Chocolate, vanilla, and berry flavors are staple flavors. There’s only so much milk, production capacity, and retail shelf space to go around.

    I’ve noticed, though, local ice cream shops are usually more willing to take a risk worth novelty flavors.

  • @JASN_DE
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    284 hours ago

    Are we talking Apple or apple pie? Because from your post I can’t really tell.

  • @SlamWich
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    32 hours ago

    The ice cream joint neat my house makes a honey apple gelato that’s pretty incredible, not sure why we don’t see it around more

  • @jecht360
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    22 hours ago

    Forget apple, we need more banana/banana creme ice cream flavors.

  • @[email protected]
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    124 hours ago

    Where do you live? Where I live (Austria), apple ice cream is maybe not 100% universally available at all ice cream vendors, but common enough that I have no problems getting it if I want to.

    • @Jordan117OP
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      53 hours ago

      Southeastern US. This is my first time seeing apple-anything ice cream on the shelves, from major national brands at least.

      • @[email protected]
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        53 hours ago

        Hm. I rarely buy ice cream in stores so I am not sure whether there is apple ice cream in stores here, but at ice cream parlors it is definitely reasonably common here.

  • @Aarrodri
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    23 hours ago

    I came in thinking this was a dad joke sub…lol… and was like wait … this a not a punch line… now we need to find a dad joke for this question…

  • @robolemmy
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    114 hours ago

    Cinnamon apple jelly should be more common too! (Not apple butter… fuck Apple butter).

    Apple cinnamon all the things!

  • teft
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    64 hours ago

    It’s a popular flavor in new england. Gifford’s has apple pie seasonally at their ice cream stands. They also have pumpkin pie ice cream which is my favorite.

  • Boozilla
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    23 hours ago

    Pure speculation on my part, but it’s probably a safe guess to assume some market studies and/or trial runs they did on the flavor showed it wouldn’t make enough profit. It’s always about the money. I’m sure many people would buy it and enjoy it, but we are talking about corporations run by people with expensive college degrees in min-maxing everything for profit.

    • @Jordan117OP
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      22 hours ago

      Maybe, but you definitely see more niche flavors like pistachio, coffee, mango, pineapple-coconut, rum raisin, etc. Hard to believe apple would be less popular, unless it’s more expensive to make for some reason.

    • @SgtAStrawberry
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      32 hours ago

      As I have lost the only vegan cheese dip in existence (in my country at least) do to that, I can totally believe it.

      I’m still sad about the cheese, it was perfect for tacos and all things melted cheese.

      • Boozilla
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        22 hours ago

        That’s a bummer. I have noticed products like that will often vanish. Or drop dramatically in quality when they swap out quality ingredients for cheaper ones.

    • @shalafi
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      -13 hours ago

      Jesus. So you expect companies to produce products that lose money?!

      Or, do you expect them to remove more profitable products, which by definition are widely loved, from the limited shelf space and replace them with less profitable products, which by definition, fewer people enjoy? You’d fail running a lemonade stand.

      • Boozilla
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        13 hours ago

        Profits are fine. Have you not been paying attention to skimplflation, CEO bonuses, etc? That’s the min-max mindset I’m talking about here.