Why an Ice Cream Scoop Is the Best Kitchen Tool for Pumpkin Carving

Fall is, by far, my favorite season. Growing up in the Northeast, the arrival of cooler weather and changing leaves always signaled the start of this magical season full of festive traditions, like apple picking and carving pumpkins for Halloween. The latter is still a favorite, and last year I made a serendipitous discovery: An ice cream scoop makes pumpkin carving so much easier.

If you’ve carved pumpkins before, you’re probably familiar with the carving kits sold at grocery stores.  They usually come with a booklet of patterns, a poker for outlining your design, mini saws for carving and a scoop for removing the seeds and pulp. But let’s be honest—those tiny saws are flimsy and often break while you’re in the middle of carving out your design. 

One way to avoid that frustration is to thin out the pumpkin walls before carving, which makes cutting into them much easier. That’s where an ice cream scoop comes in.

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The same firm edges that seamlessly cut through frozen ice cream are surprisingly great for hollowing out a pumpkin. You’ll need to use a bit more pressure, but in my experience, it’s still much easier than serrated scoops that come in carving kits. If you already have an ice cream scoop on hand, that’s one less seasonal tool to buy. And after Halloween, you can put it right back to work on ice cream and cookie dough. 

Here’s how I use it: Once I’ve transferred my design to the pumpkin, I use a sharp knife (a chef’s knife works great!) to cut the top open. Wearing plastic gloves, I remove the pulp and seeds (saving the latter to make roasted pumpkin seeds, of course), and then grab my ice cream scoop to scrape the inside walls until they’re about 3/4 to 1 inch thick. You only really need to thin the area where you’ll be carving, so I focus there. Then I switch to the mini saws to carve my design with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown playing in the background—some traditions never get old. 

So if pumpkin carving is on your fall to-do list, check your utensil drawer—you might already have the ultimate tool to make it a whole lot easier. Happy carving!