When we think of soft serve or ice cream, we usually associate the sweet treat with a hot summer day. However, indulging in ice cream does not need to stop when wintertime arrives! In fact, there are several benefits to consuming ice cream during the cold months that you may not be aware of. Ice cream has the capability of boosting your mood and increasing your energy levels, and it also melts at a slower rate during the winter, meaning it won’t be melting down your hands and arms while you eat it so you can spend more time enjoying it!
Keep reading to learn more about how you can serve your customers soft serve differently this winter so that your Spaceman machine won’t get dusty in the back room, and you can continue using it all season long. Just because the warm weather went away doesn’t mean your Spaceman machine has to as well!
AFFOGATO
If you’ve never heard of affogato, you are in for a TREAT! Affogato, more traditionally known as “affogato al caffè”, is an Italian coffee-based dessert. It is composed of just two simple ingredients: ice cream and espresso. Affogato can be enjoyed at any time, but it is normally consumed as a late-night pick-me-up. If you’re not selling affogato at your shop currently, we guarantee it will be a huge hit if you add it to your menu. Look at the popularity of espresso martinis as of late, and then you’ll understand why some espresso-topped soft serve would be so successful at your shop!
BROWNIE A LÀ MODE
Another delicious way to keep your customers coming back for soft serve in the winter is by adding a warm element to the dessert to complement its cold temperature. A great way to do this is by dispensing some soft serve on top of a warmed-up brownie, or even a cookie! Be sure to offer a diverse range of bases and warm up each base before adding the soft serve on top. The combination of temperatures, textures, and flavors will be melting in your customer’s mouths and they’ll forget it’s only January!
HOT CHOCOLATE
Next in line, we have hot chocolate-topped soft serve. This is similar to affogato, but it’s better for those customers who don’t like espresso or those who aren’t looking for that extra caffeine kick late at night. Hot chocolate is arguably one of the most popular wintertime drinks, and consumers tend to top it with whipped cream to give it that extra creamy taste. This article even shows that hot chocolate is the one part of winter that Americans love the most. Topping soft serve with hot chocolate will make the drink creamier than EVER and will also give the hot chocolate a frosty and chilly aspect, which will be a pleasant surprise for your customers. To take it up another notch, you can even add in tiny marshmallows!
BOOZY SOFT SERVE
Lastly, serving boozy soft serve in your shop is a great way to warm up your customers from the inside out! Making boozy soft serve isn’t difficult at all, and it’s also a great way to increase the cost of your soft serve so you can sell it for more and make greater profits during the winter! We made a boozy soft serve once which you can check out here, which was made by combining one package of Texas Blends Vanilla Soft Serve Mix with 1 gallon of water and 1 liter of Grand Marnier. The end result was a delicious, spiked, orange creamsicle-tasting soft serve. Although the soft serve will be cold going in, we promise your customers will feel warmed up in no time! (This process can be done with any liqueur, just be sure to check that your brix level is between 20 and 30 by using a brix refractometer before adding the mix to your machine. The mix-to-liqueur proportions may vary depending on the brand of soft serve you use. You may also need to check your local and state regulations on selling alcoholic ice cream.)
We hope that this article has made you realize that just because the temperature has dropped, this does not mean that your Spaceman machine needs to go into hibernation. Add some new dessert options onto your menu, switch out the cone for a warm brownie, and your customers will be yearning for soft serve in the winter just as much as they do in the summer.