One TikTok creator is clearing the air about Drumstick ice cream’s tendency to, well, not melt.
Nestlé’s ice cream truck-favorite treat has been trending on TikTok the past few months as several users shared videos theorizing why it melts so slowly — and one creator has an answer.
In a TikTok shared April 13, makeup artist and biomedical engineer Savannah (@savdoesmakeup) decided to dispel some of the myths the hard-to-melt treats have inspired.
In her own words, she realized she can’t “sit back and watch people fear monger DRUMSTICKS AND ICE CREAM.”
“I’m on the side of TikTok where people are speculating why Drumsticks do not melt. And as a biomedical engineer with a concentration in materials, I want to explain why,” she says in the clip, adding that “the short answer” is “the way that the Drumstick is formulated versus regular ice cream.”
Invented in 1928, the Drumstick cone is an ice-cold dessert, yes — but it is not ice cream.
Savannah says that Drumstick cones, as well as other “frozen desserts of that variety,” contain “a little bit more of an ingredient that is known as an emulsifier,” than traditional ice creams.
Emulsifiers are chemical additives that “encourage the suspension of one liquid in another,” per Encyclopedia Britannica. The additives are used to mix oil and water not only in ice cream products but also other fridge and pantry staples, such as margarine, shortening and salad dressings.
And, as Savannah explains, it is used in frozen desserts like Drumsticks to mix fat and water — far more than regular old ice cream out of the carton.
“And that’s likely in there to help the frozen dessert keep its structural integrity,” the engineer explains, “so it does not melt.”
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In her video, the TikToker also pushed back on myths (like “the FDA is trying to poison us with emulsifiers”) by revealing an example of an all-natural emulsifier — tapioca starch, which is “the very thing that makes up your boba pearls,” she notes.
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Savannah’s TikTok explainer comes on the heels of lots of Drumstick-melting content sweeping the app — including from the cone’s creator itself.
Drumstick got in on the discussion in February, joking about the trend in a TikTok that garnered 20 million views and 300,000 likes.
In the video, titled, “studying until my drumstick melts,” a woman works at a laptop while a Drumstick cone sits beside her melting ever-so-slowly. At one point, she even blasts it with a hand-held torch, attempting to speed up the melting process.
In the caption, the company poked fun at the slow melting again, writing: “*eats it instead*.”
