Types of Ice Cream

Ice Cream Please, But Which One?

There are several styles of ice cream:

Regular Ice Cream

(no less than 10% milk fat).

Reduced Fat Ice Cream

(approximately 7% milk fat).

Low Fat Ice Cream

(no more than 3% milk fat).

Soft Serve Ice Cream

Similar in composition to reduced fat ice cream, it is aerated and frozen immediately before sale giving a frozen but fluid ice cream.

Dairy Gelato?

Strictly speaking, gelato always has some dairy component or it is a sorbetto or granita. More generally, gelato, a word derived from the Italian congelato meaning frozen, refers to a gamut of frozen ice desserts ranging from granita and sorbetto (sorbet) to semi-freddo.

Ice cream is packaged in various forms for consumer appeal:

• 21–10 litres packs
• ice cream blocks
• ice cream bricks
• cones or cups in multiple flavours
• ice cream bars with a sweet or chocolate coating
• three-dimensional stick novelties appealing to children.
• large cylinder tubs for scooping
  

How Is Ice Cream Made Commercially?

There are seven steps in the making of commercial ice cream:

1. Milk, cream, milk solids, sugars, modifying agents and flavourings are blended together in stainless steel vats.
2. The mixture is homogenised, under high pressure. This involves forcing the mixture through a fine nozzle in a stainless steel valve, helping to create the desired texture as milk fat globules become uniform in size.
3. The mixture is then pasteurised by heating at 82°C to 85°C for 15 seconds and then rapidly cooled to eliminate potentially harmful bacteria.
4. The mixture is left to stand for 4–24hrs so that ageing occurs. In this process, the fat globules solidify and the viscosity increases. Flavours or colourings are added during this time.
5. The mixture is then frozen at about -7˚C and beaten (or agitated to use the technical term). The process adds air in small cells while it creates a texture similar to whipped cream.
6. The ice cream is then moulded and packaged.
7. The packaged ice cream is frozen at around -25°C to allow the ice cream to harden.