Celebrate Carvel's big birthday with a rainbow-sprinkled, cake-flavored take on the soft-serve classic
Carvel Is Releasing a New Flavor in Honor of Its 90th Birthday
Updated on Jun. 12, 2024
There’s hardly a more nostalgic experience than a soft-serve ice cream cone on a hot summer night. (In fact, the majority of ice cream in the United States is made between March and August—how’s that for an interesting food fact?) Of course, no one knows that sweet, cool, creamy taste of simpler times better than Carvel, the iconic soft-serve brand that happens to be turning 90 this summer. To celebrate, Carvel has launched an all-summer-long menu that includes a new limited-edition ice cream flavor and some seriously delicious special additions.
So while you never really need a reason to grab your keys and head to Carvel for a frozen summertime treat, a new ice cream flavor is an extra special temptation. And we’ve got all the details on it below.
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What new flavor is Carvel launching?
Carvel might be best known for its signature vanilla and chocolate ice cream, but its rotating cast of specialty flavors just got a new addition. On May 20, to start its “90 Summers of Soft Serve,” Carvel launched birthday cake. This brand-new, limited-edition flavor is available in both soft serve (a rainbow-sprinkled, cake-flavored take on its legendary offering) and scooped (made with birthday cake crunchies, which combine rainbow sprinkles, Carvel’s sweet, waxy birthday bonnet confection, and cookie crumbles from Flying Saucer ice cream sandwiches).
What other birthday items has Carvel added this summer?
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Do we have your mouthwatering attention yet? The menu also features five more birthday items:
- Birthday Cake Shake, complete with the birthday cake crunchies and scooped birthday cake ice cream
- Birthday Cake Sundae Dasher, which layers birthday cake soft serve with birthday cake crunchies and sprinkle-topped whipped cream
- Birthday Cake Flying Saucer, Carvel’s timeless version of an ice cream sandwich
- Birthday Cake Dream Pop, soft serve dipped in birthday bonnet
- And Birthday Cake Carvelanche, a combination of birthday cake soft-serve ice cream and birthday crunchies—you’ll want to eat this with a spoon!
While most of these limited-edition menu items can be enjoyed at Carvel locations, the Birthday Cake Carvelanche is an online exclusive that can be ordered only via Carvel.com or third-party delivery sites like DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats.
For true fans, Carvel is also dropping birthday merchandise, including apparel, accessories and home items featuring “original designs that capture the quirky essence that Carvel fans have come to know and love over the last 90 summers,” according to a press release. The first items are available now, and new pieces will be released throughout 2024 to keep the party going.
Did Carvel invent soft serve?
It takes a lot of innovation to stick around for nearly a century, and Carvel has found success there. Although it’s hard to say for sure who invented ice cream, Tom Carvel has been credited by many with the invention of soft serve. When his ice cream truck got a flat tire on a scorchingly hot Memorial Day weekend in 1934, he was forced to sell the slightly melted ice cream. Turns out: People preferred it soft. Carvel continued to innovate in the industry, patenting a “no-air pump,” super-low-temperature ice cream, which marks the key difference between soft serve and gelato or ice cream.
He also opened a frozen custard stand using a freezer, which was considered a luxury at the time. Carvel then went on to invent a new type of freezer called the Custard King and began selling them in 1947, the same year he opened his first franchise. Over the past 90 years, Carvel has introduced some of the most beloved frozen desserts, including Flying Saucers, Fudgie the Whale and the Carvelanche, many of which explain how the company has withstood the test of time.
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