So this is a close up of the frozen custard at Kopps. For those of you who have never had frozen custard it’s sort of like soft serve, at least softer than hard ice cream. But it’s more rich and dense than hard ice cream. It has egg yolks in it and a higher butter fat content. It has less overrun (fewer air bubbles mixed in), and it doesn’t need to be cooled as cold as hard ice cream. So it’s very very silky, more than you can imagine. And very firm at the same time. Do you know how a well roasted beet is sort of satisfying to cut? Somehow pulling your tongue through frozen custard reminds me of that satisfying feeling.

You’d think all that added fat would make it worse on a calorie or fat comparison. The thing is that it’s so satisfying and rich you don’t eat that much. So the serving sizes are smaller. Serving size to serving size it turns out to be lower calorie and lower fat than the hard and soft alternatives.

Frozen Custard was developed in the early part of the century at resort towns on the East Coast. Then some midwestern entrepreneurs saw the idea and brought it out to Indiana (site of the oldest custard shop) where it spread to the rest of the Great Lakes region. I was exposed to it in Buffalo on my way to Michigan to visit family. Milwaukee is currently the custard capital of the world. I’ve eaten it in Michigan, in Indiana, Ohio. But I never had anything like this.