Ann Vinciguerra: The A-List Eats - Soft Serve Ice Cream

As a child in the 1970s and 1980s, my family maintained healthy eating habits. Vegetables from our vast garden, home-cooked meals, school lunch sandwiches made with whole wheat bread, and other wholesome foods were staples of our diet. TV dinners were out and an occasional glass of Coke with pizza or, my favorite, a soft serve ice cream cone, were rare treats.

This bleached white ice cream served in a flat bottom cone was a much-anticipated delight. On those festive occasions when I found myself at the Randolph, New Jersey Dairy Queen, I was in awe as the server pulled the lever on the machine and an ice cream cone magically formed in front of my eyes. The triangular treat grew until it was topped off with an elegant twist. To be a server at Dairy Queen was one of my earliest job aspirations.

I hadn’t thought about soft serve ice cream in decades and my sweet spot for it remained buried until somewhere around the spring of 2020 when I began to crave it. That summer, a celebratory cone was what I looked forward to at the end of my 124-mile Centennial Trail thru-hike, and my two-cones-per-summer indulgence had begun.

Today, the concoction remains unchanged since my childhood. These frosty confections are still pumped out of a machine and swirled into peaks, and the color, coolness, and consistency are the same as well. In rapidly changing Bozeman, where prices are constantly rising and everything is becoming more boutique-y and top dollar, soft serve cones are still inexpensive and give me a nostalgia for a younger, simpler time in my life.

Mike was puzzled when my craving first came about, and friends looked at me confused. I too was a bit mystified with my new fascination. We all had questions. What is soft serve made out of? When, how, and why was it invented? Is it possible to make homemade soft serve? Why is it so soft and how to they make it so starkly white?

I set out to find answers to these questions. Here is what I learned.

Exploring Soft Serve Ice Cream

What is it?

Soft serve is less dense than traditional ice cream or gelato as air is introduced at the time of freezing. It is the air that keeps it a smooth and light. It is served at a temperature a few degrees warmer than hard-packed ice cream and is made with a soft serve machine, which is key to maintaining the correct temperature. Eggs are not added to the mix, but stabilizers help create the magic.

When and why was it created?

Soft serve has several origin stories with both Dairy Queen and Carvel staking claim to the feat. The Carvel story has it that Tom Carvel got a flat tire as he was driving in his ice-cream truck on Memorial Day in 1934. He began selling his melting products to those passing by and opened his first Carvel store two years later.

Another widely circulating rumor names Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of England, as the inventor of soft serve. Early in her career she worked as a food chemist for conglomerate J. Lyons & Company and was part of a team developing an emulsifier that whipped air into ice cream allowing it to be made for less by using fewer ingredients (Read more about it here in the New Yorker.)

As with many things, I’m sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle of these theories. Either way, soft serve has been around for almost 90 years.

Can you make it at home?

If you’re craving soft serve, it’s possible to make it at home without having to buy the mix from the Sysco truck or being the owner of a behemoth industrial machine. William Sonoma sells a Cuisinart kitchen countertop soft serve maker for $125. The Cuisinart website has a recipe that works in the machine using whole milk, granulated sugar, and pure vanilla extract.

The A-List Guide to Enjoying Soft Serve Ice Cream in Southwest Montana

If you wish to partake in the guilty pleasure of a soft serve cone from time to time, here are my recommendations.

Skip Dairy Queen – It would be obvious to head here as they are still around and can be found in many small towns across Southwest Montana. For me, however, Dairy Queen has fallen out of favor. Their lobbies, at least the ones I have come across during my summer travels, are all closed. (Although that doesn’t stop people at the Bozeman Dairy Queen with piles of idling cars wrapping around the building and spilling out onto North 7th Avenue.) Part of the allure of a getting a cone is stepping into the store to partake in the retro-ness of the experience, interacting with the server, and watching the cone come to life.

Luckily, we have some independent alternatives in Southwest Montana. While the soft serve might not be original, these are all locally owned businesses so they're worth checking out.

Sugar High, Ennis - Sugar High is located in a relatively new building. The top resembles a barn and there is a splash of brick on the lower part of the building. Local pride is obvious with a large Go Ennis painted on the wall and posters of high school sports teams are posted throughout the building.

Sugar High is no-frills establishment that is only open in the summer. There’s not much inside other than a few seats and the counter where you place your order. The day Mike and I went a teenage girl working at the counter and a man was working in kitchen who I’m guessing was the manager or the owner. The girl was not put out or bored looking as you sometimes find with high school kids who work in the service industry, and she was friendly without being phony.

Sugar High serves typical America fare, and their hamburgers are handmade with beef from a local meat shop. They have three soft serve flavors, vanilla, chocolate, and huckleberry, and it is possible to get two flavors swirled.

We each got a simple vanilla come and ate our pillowy delights at the picnic table under a covered outside area. It was a great spot to rest our feet, stare at the Madison Range where we had just been backpacking, and revel in the splendor of a perfect Montana day at this friendly location.

Red Box Car, Red Lodge - Who isn’t drawn to a restaurant in an old train car? The Red Box Car makes its home in a 1903 train car from the Rocky Fork line, which was converted into the restaurant in 1972. In 1889, the rail line reached Red Lodge. Northern Pacific Railway Company acquired the line in 1890 but abandoned it after World War II. A web search did not reveal the history of the establishment, but I always wonder about the story behind a train car turned into a restaurant.

The Red Box Car is only open in the summer, and they only accept cash, which adds an old-fashioned element to the experience. This is a simple operation and orders are placed at the window counter. While there is a small inside seating area, the highlight of grabbing a bite at the red Box Car is the large deck which overlooks Rock Creek. (Surprisingly, neither the deck nor the restaurant were destroyed in last summer's flood, and the restaurant was able to help feed the community during the crisis.) A handwritten sign lists its standard burgers-and-fries menu, and food is served in cardboard foot trays lined with red and white checkered wax paper.

Mike and I headed there for a burger and a cone after skiing in the Beartooths over Memorial Day weekend. The gurgle of Rock Creek, the roar of traffic heading to and from the mighty Beartooth Pass, and a smattering of motorcycles parked outside gave the Red Box Car a classic Americana feel. Montana's majestic sky gleamed cobalt and the sun warmed the landscape with pleasant spring temperatures. On the cusp of summer, watching tourists filter by in piles enjoying the state we call home, and bringing back memories of the carefree days of my youth, it was hard not to be smitten with the Red Box Car.

Dew Drop Inn, Absarokee - Housed in a squat one-story building, the Drew Drop Inn has, according to their sign, been “serving since the 1960s.”

Signs on their building advertise pizza, monster burritos, and Indian tacos but a majority of the menu is standard burger-and-fries eats. Food is ordered at the counter window (Cash only) and there are picnic tables along with a covered open air dining area that has car seats for seating. The covered area was a tad scuzzy but not so much so that we felt it unsanitary or uncomfortable. This humble drive in was quite popular the day Mike and I went, and the staff was able to handle several larger parties efficiently, so we didn’t have to wait long for our food. And coming from Bozeman, the lower prices (Hamburgers with handmade patties, were $5.50, and tater tots were $2) really stood out.

We had come from a weekend hiking and camping in the Beartooth mountains. To get here, we had dropped from over 10,000 feet above sea level to just above 4,000 feet in Absarokee, and the change in the weather was as stark as you could imagine it being. The thermometor on the bank across the street said it was 99 degrees – yikes! Although the Dew Drop Inn wasn’t a “best ever” soft serve experience, we were hot, tired, and hungry, and it was fine. We’d go back again.

Soft Serve Beyond Montana

A Northern New Jersey Soft Serve Standout

The After Charbroil & Ice Cream Parlor, Flanders, New Jersey

This discussion would not be complete without a shout out to The After Charbroil and Ice Cream Parlor in Flanders, New Jersey, a family-owned business founded in 1970. Although my grandparent’s house was across the street from it, I have only been there two or three times.

In the 1940s, my grandparents purchased an old farm on 60 acres in Flanders. The road where The After is located was built in 1927 and intersected the farm. In the 1960s, my grandparents sold off a large chunk of the property including the land that eventually became The After.

As a child, I went to my grandparent’s place often, but a cone at The After was not part of these visits. (See paragraph one of this post – the whole healthy eating thing got in the way of that!). I was in awe as they, unlike the Randolph Dairy Queen, had a machine that swirled the chocolate and vanilla ice cream together making a bi-color treat.

After my grandfather passed away in 1989, my family sold his property to a landscaping company, who allowed us to scatter my mother’s ashes on the property after her passing in 2018. (Interestingly, the landscapers sold their business, and the property is now being turned into a Wawa. See this Facebook group “to keep local residents informed of the proposed site changes to remodel Herold's Landscaping into a WaWa Food Store and Fueling Station.” ) Afterwards, I visited The After with my cousin and was glad to find little has changed since my childhood.

The After is housed in an unassuming brick and shingled building and a plastic replica of a soft serve cone dons the roof. There is a small outside seating area with picnic tables, and inside, the wood paneling speaks to another era but is well-maintained, so the place didn’t feel worn out or sloppy.

Orders are placed at the counter, and the extensive menu is written on a chalkboard above the counter. Burgers in baskets with crinkle cut fries, and other classic diner fare dominate but you can also find more contemporary (yet still largely American) offerings such as bison, veggie, and black bean burgers. Homemade desserts, along with Welsh Farms ice cream, and soft serve round out the menu.

Much like Sugar High, The After gave off a friendly, local vibe, and teenage girl who took our order was engaged and personable. My cousin and I mentioned that our grandfather owned the property before it became The After. She squealed with delight and thought that was "so cool." She giggled when she told us her father used to go snowmobiling in the fields behind the building. This was a nice change of pace as the landscapers were uninterested in the history of their property.

With the memory of my grandparents and my mother fresh in our minds, my cousin enjoyed a milkshake and I enjoyed a soft serve cone. This trip to The After had a way evoking nostalgia for my younger days and providing comfort during a difficult.