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Ice Cream Basics By Dan Gill,
Ethno-Gastronomist When I was growing up on the farm, we always had a milk cow and
plenty of fresh milk, cream and butter. A special summer treat was homemade
ice cream, hand-churned at first, and then later made in an electric White
Mountain ice cream freezer chilled by a slurry of ice, salt and water.
It was good. In fact it was so good that it is now illegal, at least for
trade. Our mix was simply raw milk, cream, raw eggs, sugar and flavoring
– usually chocolate. It was not overly sweet, but it was so rich that
it would coat the roof of your mouth. Since the only stabilizers and
emulsifiers were components of egg yolks, it melted quickly, lightly and completely
on the tongue and therefore seemed much colder than the more complex and
slower melting ice creams of today. When we decided to make ice cream at
Something Different, I wanted to make our old-fashioned version (with
pasteurized eggs and milk, of course), but quickly discovered that, by law,
any dairy mix used to make ice cream has to be pasteurized and homogenized
beforehand. Therefore, at least in the Commonwealth of Virginia, virtually
any ice cream sold to the public starts with a mix made in a dairy plant.
Even so, there are significant differences in quality based on the components
of the mix, additional ingredients and flavorings and the way it is frozen
and handled. Independent ice cream shops that make their own premium and
super-premium specialty ice creams in batches will often have their mixes
custom-made. High quality all-natural custom mixes use milk from hormone- and
antibiotic-free cows, small amounts of natural emulsifiers and stabilizers
and no High Fructose Corn Syrup. Ice cream is a strained and tenuous alliance of things that do
not ordinarily play well together: water (ice crystals), cream (butterfat)
and air, each of which tries to seek out its own kind and separate into icy
clumps. Agitation and cold result in a smooth matrix of small ice crystals
coated with sugar and interspersed with cream, conditions that result in
cold, smooth, sweet and creamy sensations when eaten. Tiny air bubbles are
incorporated naturally by the action of beaters in batch ice cream freezers,
which work just like an old hand-crank model laid on its side and chilled by
refrigerant. In industrial continuous-flow machines, air is injected into the
mix during the freezing process. Air makes ice cream soft so that it can be
scooped. Emulsifiers help keep the butterfat in suspension and stabilizers
slow the formation of larger ice crystals, which grow when ice cream is
subjected to fluctuations in temperature during transportation and storage,
especially when kept in frost-free freezers. Ice cream is judged, classified and priced primarily by the
percentage of cream in the mix and the amount of air incorporated into the
final product. In order for a frozen dessert to legally be called ice cream
it must contain at least 10% butterfat and less than 50% air. Overrun is a
measurement of the volume of air relative to the initial volume of mix.
Therefore, an ice cream that is half air by volume is said to have 100%
overrun, the legal maximum. Since ice cream is sold by volume and not by
weight, overrun is a reliable indicator of value. Regular store-bought ice
cream will be close to the minimum requirements. Premium ice cream contains
about 14% to 16% butterfat and less overrun than standard brands. You can
actually feel the difference by picking up a gallon of each grade and
comparing the heft. Super premium is generally available only in specialty
shops that make their own in small batches. It typically contains more than
16% butterfat and less than 50% overrun
(25% air by volume) for a rich, creamy mouth feel. It is expensive to
make and usually contains high quality natural ingredients, such as real
vanilla, fruits and nuts, and fewer artificial flavorings. It is safe to say that all ice cream is flavored and most
contains commercial flavorings and colorants. There is a vast industry that
creates, manufactures and markets flavorings and colorants for the food
industry in general and the ice cream industry specifically. Most are
composed of concentrated natural and/or artificial flavors and colors
dissolved in propylene glycol. Commercial flavorings are designed to stand on
their own or to intensify the taste and color of natural ingredients, such as
peaches or pecans, for added consumer appeal. Vanilla is the benchmark and the basis of all other flavors. If
you can make a good vanilla ice cream, then you can make anything. Vanilla is
also the most popular flavor by far, followed by chocolate and butter pecan.
Better quality ice creams use real vanilla extract, rather than a flavoring
based on artificial vanillin. At Something Different, we use pure Madagascar
Bourbon, the best there is, to make our super-premium, all-natural ice
creams.
In fact, we dont use any
manufactured flavorings or colorants at all: To make our Buttered Pecan, we
caramelize pecans in butter and organic sugar. We make a trip to the
mountains of Virginia in the summer and bring back bushels of the little White
Lady peaches for our White Peach ice cream and enhance the natural
flavor of peaches and strawberries with a little balsamic vinegar and kelp
powder. Last Christmas, we made some eggnog ice cream as an experiment.
Not the normal variety made with eggnog flavoring, but a real adult version
using my mothers recipe. Mother did not make wimpy eggnog. It was so popular
that customers actually got angry when they found out that we were not going
to make it except during the holidays. We then came up with Grasshopper made
with Crme de Menthe and Crme de Cacao and topped with chopped Oreo cookies.
We plan to try some other adult flavors this summer, such as Pia Colada or Margarita. Fortunately, we are
licensed as a Gourmet Shop by ABC so that we can legally use alcohol in our
recipes, but we serve and sell our adult ice creams only to verified adults
and there is an alcohol warning on the label. There are also some technical difficulties to be overcome
when incorporating alcohol into ice cream as it lowers the freezing point and
reduces overrun so that the ice cream is more expensive to make and it
remains relatively soft at normal serving temperatures. There are a few other shops in the River Country that serve
premium ice creams or make their own on site. Pleasant Living plans to take
the ice cream tour for the July – August issue. Dan Gill - Published
in Pleasant Living May – June 10 Something Different Country Store and Deli More Blurbs
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