Two parts do the work: the handle and the bowl
Most ice cream scoops are built for ice cream that's already soft. Yours isn't. It's been in the freezer since Tuesday and it's a brick. So you run the scoop under hot water, or you pry at it until your wrist hurts, or you bend a spoon. We built the Midnight Scoop around that problem. Here's how the two working parts do their job.
The curve sits in your palm so you push forward with your arm and chest instead of twisting your wrist. Your arm is stronger than your wrist joint, so you get more force into the ice cream and less strain.
Most scoops use a straight handle, and a straight handle makes you pry. Prying loads the wrist sideways, which is the weakest direction it moves in. That's why hard ice cream feels like work with a normal scoop.
You hold this one like a shovel and push forward. It takes about two scoops to get used to.
The bowl has a sharpened edge that cuts into frozen ice cream on its own. Heated scoops work by melting a thin layer of the ice cream, and that changes the texture of what you're serving.
Plenty of scoops solve hard ice cream with heat. Some have fluid-filled handles that borrow warmth from your hand. Some you run under the tap. Both do the same thing. They melt the surface so the bowl can get through.
We didn't want to melt anything. The edge is thin enough to part the ice cream instead, so you get a clean scoop at the temperature it was already at. The bowl holds about 3 ounces.
100 percent stainless steel with no chemical coatings. It's corrosion resistant, non-toxic, and dishwasher safe. There's no plastic, no rubber grip, and no coating to wear off. This is the third generation of the design.
| Material | 100% stainless steel, no chemical coatings |
| Blade | High quality, removable |
| Bowl capacity | About 3 oz per scoop |
| Cleaning | Dishwasher safe |
| Design status | Patented |
| Warranty | Lifetime guarantee |
It isn't cheap. It's one piece of solid steel and it's priced that way. If you scoop ice cream twice a year, a $15 scoop is fine and we'd rather you bought that.
It's also an odd shape for a drawer. The curve doesn't lie flat, so most people keep it in a utensil crock.
And it's built for hard ice cream. On soft serve that's already been sitting out it works, but so does a spoon. The design pays off when the ice cream is frozen solid.
Michael Chou is an aerospace engineer. He started Midnight Kitchen Tools in 2013 in South Lyon, Michigan, after getting tired of fighting with a pint of ice cream. The curved handle came out of treating it as a leverage problem rather than a temperature problem. The design is patented.