Is ice cream plural in French?

Question

In the weekend A1 writing excersize it gave, "Leurs glaces sont excellentes !" as the answer for, "Their ice cream is excellent." I got it wrong, of course, because I used it as a singular like I would in English. But earlier in the dialog, they also used it singularly, so I'm not sure why or when it should be plural?

Accepted Answer

Hi Melisa,
It will depend on the context.
You would say of a shop ice cream , "Leurs glaces sont excellentes" you cannot use the singular here.
You will say for instance:
J'ai acheté une glace à la pistache chez Ben & Jerry's car leurs glaces sont excellentes = I bought a pistachio ice cream at Ben & Jerry's because their ice cream is excellent 
If you talk about ice cream in general it will be mostly in the plural.
N.B. Let's not forget that 'glace' can also describe 'frozen water' as in- 
une sculpture de glace = an ice sculpture
or
patiner sur la glace = to ice-skate 
in this case 'glace' will be singular.
Hope this helps!

Answer

It sounds odd to me to as a plural but I'll try to remember it. Thank you for the examples. I think I understand.