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?

  • agent_nycto@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Corporate studies show that the most popular ice cream flavors are the flavors we’ve always made and new flavors are risky because we don’t know how popular they will be and so we only do the same flavors so we’re always right.

    Same reason why you only get reboots and remakes, it’s a safer bet for investment.

    Because CaPiTaLiSm BrEeDs InNoVaTiOn~!

  • janNatan@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Why isn’t orange (the fruit) ice cream more popular? I don’t mean sherbet, I mean ice cream. It can be bought in Florida, but I’ve never heard of it anywhere else.

    • lando55@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I feel silly asking since you mentioned Florida, but do they use real oranges? Any time I’ve ever seen or tasted orange ice cream it was always that fake stuff.

      • janNatan@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        I do believe it’s made with real orange, especially if you’re get it from a street vendor near the beach. Been years since I had it.

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      This should be higher. Even broken iPhones from 3 years ago sell for tens or hundreds of euros.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    3 days 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…

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    2 days ago

    I’ve wondered about the same but with kiwi fruit it’s delicious and refreshing yet you don’t see any flavored drinks or ice cream with that flavor.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I suspect it’s related to the difficulty in processing. Kiwi fruit are quite small and non-trivial to extract the flesh from. This would make it more expensive to extract.

      This is less of an issue now that a few decades back. However, most people are quite conservative on their juice choices. Low sales still mean higher cost, which reduces sales.

    • inconel@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Kiwi and pineapples have enzyme to break proteins down, causing it taste better if they have contact to diary products long enough. Canned pineapples don’t have this issue but I haven’t seen canned kiwi, maybe that explains no kiwi ice cream

  • JASN_DE@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

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

  • EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days 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

    • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 day ago

      Lemon ice cream is great, though.

      Also, apples, acidic…? I hate all apples except Granny Smiths because they taste sweet and cloying as fuck… Granny Smiths are the only ones I’ve ever found with a nice acidic taste…

    • Fish [Indiana]@midwest.social
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      3 days ago

      Orange creamcicle flavored ice cream is pretty easy to find. But I think it’s usually vanilla ice cream with layers of orange sherbet. Strawberries are acidic and strawberry ice cream is a popular flavor.

      In my experience, apples just don’t taste very good when frozen. Maybe that’s why they don’t sell frozen apples at most supermarkets?

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I make ice cream as a hobby and found orange ice cream is too rich to eat even a scoop in one sitting. It’s completely possible but it’s hard to eat.

  • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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    2 days ago

    Is it the one I saw at ALDI? (or possibly the same supplier)

    It was pretty freaking good ngl

  • s_s@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Apples turn brown when you freeze them.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      While that is the case, modern industrial ice cream rarely contains the actual fruit. Just take standard Neutro mix, regenerate it with water, not milk, and add some food coloring (a light green), an acidic component like citric acid, and “natural” “apple” flavor.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days 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.

    • Jordan117@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 days ago

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

      • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 days 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.