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?

  • Boozilla
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    39 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      39 months 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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        49 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      49 months 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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        39 months 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.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      29 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        19 months ago

        Maybe it’s less popular because so many people buy ice cream to eat with actual apple pie, or some other kind of pie which might taste weird with apple pie flavors.

    • @[email protected]
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      99 months ago

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

  • @[email protected]
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    29 months 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…

  • @[email protected]
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    59 months 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

  • Swordgeek
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    79 months 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.)

  • @[email protected]
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    9 months 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

    • @[email protected]
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      39 months 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.

    • Fish [Indiana]
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      49 months 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?

  • @[email protected]
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    659 months 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…

  • Altima NEO
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    49 months 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.

  • LousyCornMuffins
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    229 months ago

    you’d end up with apple cider vinegar as your flavorant, and that doesn’t play well with milk.

  • @[email protected]
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    39 months 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.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆
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    9 months 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    39 months 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~!