In common usage, a scoop is any specialized

spoon A spoon (, ) is a utensil consisting of a shallow bowl (also known as a head), oval or round, at the end of a handle. A type of cutlery (sometimes called flatware in the United States), especially as part of a table setting, place setting, it ...

used to serve food. In the technical terms used by the food service industry and in the retail and wholesale food utensil industries, there is a clear distinction between three types of scoop: the disher, which is used to measure a portion e.g. cookie dough, to make melon balls, and often to serve

ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...

(although manufacturers frequently advise against using dishers for ice cream and other frozen foods); the ice cream scoop, and the transfer scoop which is used to measure or to transfer an unspecified amount of a bulk dry foodstuff such as rice, flour, or sugar.

Disher

Dishers are usually

hemispherical A sphere (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a surface (mathematics), surface analogous to the circle, a curve. In solid geometry, a sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

like an ice cream scoop, while measuring scoops are usually

cylindrical A cylinder () has traditionally been a Solid geometry, three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a Prism (geometry), prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may ...

, and transfer scoops are usually

shovel A shovel is a tool used for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore. Most shovels are hand tools consisting of a broad blade fixed to a medium-length handle. Shovel blades are usually made ...

-shaped. Some dishers have mechanical levers which help expel the disher's contents. Traditionally dishers are sized by the number of scoops per

quart The quart (symbol: qt) is a unit of volume equal to a quarter of a gallon. Three kinds of quarts are currently used: the liquid quart and dry quart of the US customary system and the of the British imperial system. All are roughly equal ...

but may also be sized by ounces, the

diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the centre of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest Chord (geometry), chord of the circle. Both definitions a ...

of the bowl, or the number of tablespoons they hold.

Ice cream scoop

Some higher-end ice cream scoops have a thermally conductive liquid in the handle to help keep the ice cream from freezing to the scoop's metal.

History

Alfred L. Cralle, a

porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., a locom ...

in a drug store and at a hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, noticed that servers at the hotel had trouble with ice cream sticking to serving spoons, and he developed an ice cream scoop. On June 10, 1896, Cralle applied for a patent on his invention. He was awarded patent 576,395 on February 2, 1897. The patented "Ice Cream Mold and Disher" was an ice cream scoop with a built-in scraper to allow for one-handed operation. Cralle's functional design is reflected in modern ice cream scoops.

Transfer scoop

Transfer scoops (a.k.a. utility scoops) are used to transfer bulk foods from large storage containers to smaller containers, and generally do not have any measurement markings, as their purpose is to transfer, and taking time to adjust the amount in a scoop would slow the transfer rate.

Other types

* Ice scoop * Coffee scoop * Spooner * Dipper * French fry scoop *

Cheese scoop A cheese knife is a type of kitchen knife specialized for the cutting of cheese. Different cheeses require different knives, according primarily to hardness. There are also a number of other kitchen tools designed for cutting or slicing cheese, ...

Standard sizes

The table below is the standard definition in the U.S. food industry, but actual capacity varies by manufacturer. Image:Small_transfer_scoop.JPG, Transfer scoop File:Ice Cream Scoop.jpg, Zerolon ice cream scoop with heat conductive fluid and green handle cap, indicating a #16 scoop (Zerolon scoops use a non-standard color coding, where the size # is the number of double scoop servings in a gallon) Image:CaramelCorn.jpg, Large aluminum scoop, here with

caramel corn Caramel corn or caramel popcorn (toffee popcorn in the UK) is a confection made of popcorn coated with a sugar or molasses-based caramel candy shell that is normally less than 1mm thick. Typically a sugar solution or syrup is made and heated un ...

References

{{Kitchen tools Spoons American inventions Serving utensils Customary units of measurement in the United States