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ice cream
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What is ice cream?
Ice cream is a popular frozen dessert made from cream or butterfat, milk, sugar, and flavorings. Some kinds, such as frozen custard and French-style ice cream, also have eggs.
Commercial ice cream is made by mixing liquid ingredients like milk, cream, and syrups with dry ingredients like sugar, stabilizers, and dried eggs or milk. This mix is pasteurized, homogenized, ripened in a refrigerated vat, and then combined with chopped fruit or nuts. While freezing, the mix is agitated to incorporate air and control ice crystal size. Finally, the partially frozen ice cream is packaged and hardened.
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What are the main ingredients in ice cream?
Ice cream consists of milk, cream, sugar, flavoring, and a stabilizer. Some lower-cost options may substitute ingredients like corn syrup, artificial flavorings, and dry whey.
To make ice cream, ingredients are combined to form a mix, which is then pasteurized and homogenized. After this, the mix is refrigerated for several hours, and then ingredients such as fruits or nuts are added. The mix is then agitated as it freezes to incorporate air and control ice crystal size. Finally, the ice cream is packaged and frozen solid.
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How is ice cream made?
Ice cream is a frozen dessert made from cream, milk, sugar, and flavorings. Commercial ice cream production involves combining liquid ingredients like milk, cream, and syrups with dry ingredients such as sugar, stabilizers, and dried milk or eggs.
This mix is then pasteurized, homogenized, and aged in a refrigerated vat. Next, the mix is agitated while freezing to incorporate air and control ice crystal size. This can be done through continuous or batch freezing. Finally, the partially frozen ice cream is packaged and further frozen to harden. Flavorings, fruits, nuts, or other solids can be added before the final freezing stage.
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What are some popular flavors of ice cream?
Ice cream is a frozen dessert made from cream, milk, sugar, and flavorings. Many flavors have been created, but some of the most well-known are vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. When these three are combined, it is known as Neapolitan.
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How does ice cream differ from other frozen desserts like gelato or sorbet?
Ice cream, gelato, and sorbet are popular frozen desserts, but they differ significantly. Ice cream, which evolved from flavored ices, must have at least 10% fat and 20% total milk solids. Gelato is an Italian type of ice cream made from milk, sugar, and flavorings. It contains less air and more flavor than American ice cream. Sherbet is a fruit-flavored frozen dessert made from water, sugar, flavorings, and milk or cream, with a butterfat content between 1 and 2 percent. Water ices, like French sorbet and Italian granita, are similar to sherbet but contain no dairy.
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How has the history of ice cream changed over time and in different countries?
Ice cream evolved from flavored ices enjoyed by Roman nobles in 4th century BCE. Emperor Nero had snow brought from the mountains and mixed with fruit and honey. Around the 13th century, Marco Polo brought recipes for milk ices from China to Italy.
The realization that salt could lower the freezing point of ice led to the first practical method for making ice cream. The wooden bucket freezer simplified the process for home cooks.
In 1686, the Sicilian Francesco Procopio opened a café in Paris, popularizing ices and sherbets. By 1851, wholesale ice cream production started in Baltimore. The invention of mechanical refrigeration led to widespread distribution, and ice cream parlors flourished. The ice cream cone debuted at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
Gelato, a type of ice cream with Italian origins, was first made in 16th-century Italy. As Italian gelato makers migrated, their recipes spread rapidly across Europe and beyond.
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ice cream, frozen dairy food and common dessert made from cream or butterfat, milk, sugar, and flavorings. Frozen custard and French-type ice creams also contain eggs. Containing less air than the ice cream produced in the United States (which has more butterfat), and denser and more intensely flavored, is the related Italian gelato. Hundreds of flavors of ice cream have been devised, the most popular being vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. (When the three flavors are combined, it is known as Neopolitan.) Ice cream is also the basis of other desserts, such as baked Alaska, which consists of ice cream layered between a slice of sponge cake and a covering of meringue that is browned in either an oven at high heat or by a butane culinary torch.
Iced desserts were introduced into Europe from the East. Marco Polo brought back descriptions of fruit ices from his travels in China. Italian cooks developed recipes and techniques for making both water and milk ices; Buontalenti, one of the cooks taken to France by Catherine de Medici, first prepared such treats for the French court. In 1686 a Sicilian, Francesco Procopio, opened a café in Paris and began to sell ices and sherbets, which became so popular that numerous other ice makers soon opened in the capital. Tortoni, owner of a café in late-18th-century Paris, is credited with developing cream ices. In the United States, ice cream was served by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Dolley Madison. Philadelphia became the hub of ice-cream manufacture in the United States; the ice-cream soda was invented there in 1874. The ice-cream cone, portable and self-contained, originated at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square, home to the onetime chocolate factory, became famous for its hot-fudge sundaes.
Commercial ice cream is made by combining, under constant agitation, the liquid ingredients (milk, cream, syrups, etc.). These liquids are heated and combined with dry ingredients (sugar, stabilizers, dried eggs or milk) to form a mix, which is then pasteurized and homogenized. The mix is ripened for several hours in a refrigerated vat, then combined with finely chopped fruit, nuts, or other solids. The mix is agitated while being frozen in order to incorporate air and control the size of the ice crystals that are formed. The partially frozen ice cream is drawn off into packages and frozen solid, or “hardened.” So-called soft-service ice cream was invented in 1939; it is served directly from the freezing machine without being allowed to harden.
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Homemade ice cream is often made with a base of boiled custard. The mix, with flavorings, is poured into a canister surrounded with ice and salt or a refrigerator unit. The contents of the canister are agitated by means of a hand crank or electric motor until the ice cream is softly frozen. The ice cream is usually allowed to harden further in a freezer.