Ice Cream Scoop History

Prior to the invention of the ice cream scoop employees would use two ladles or spoons, then transferring the scooped mound to the serving dish. In 1876 George William Clewell invented a single cone shaped utensil which allowed a scraper to move around the interior of the chamber and release the ice cream. This invention had limitations as the person operating it would require both hands to operate the mechanism, in addition to the cone-shaped device being awkward for harder ice cream that came from newer freezers.

Who Invented the Ice Cream Scoop

In the 1890s Alfred L. Cralle was at a hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and witnessed an issue involving serving spoons whilst portioning ice cream. With this inspiration he developed a lever-action ice cream scoop and the patent number 576395 was granted on 2nd February 1897 for the ‘Ice Cream Mold and Disher’. This ice cream scoop was composed of an ice cream scoop with a built-in scraper operating with one hand; Cralle’s original patent was for a cone-shaped scoop and he later invented the familiar hemi-spherical scoop.

Modern day scoops follow this same established pattern and high-end equivalents incorporate a thermally conductive liquid in the handle which prevents the ice cream from freezing to the scoop's metal bowl.