Ice cream ingredients

The main ingredients for making ice cream

Water

Ice cream consists of 60-65% water. Without water, it would not be possible to produce ice cream because water is the only freezable ingredient. The "hidden" water, for example in the milk, cream, butter, eggs or fruit, is also included.

Sugar

When eating ice cream, we don't want to eat an ice cube, we want to find a creamy, smooth texture, which depends greatly on the type of sugar used. There are different types of sugar, which also have different sweetness, which is called the sweetness power of the sugar. Just as important as the sweetening power is the water-binding capacity of the individual sweeteners. Bound water acts as a kind of antifreeze and therefore remains soft even at subzero temperatures. It is precisely this freeze-inhibiting effect that is desired in the freezing process of ice cream. It keeps the ice cream pleasantly smooth. However, too much sweetness is just as undesirable and detrimental as too little. The sugar content must not be reduced by more than a quarter, otherwise the desired firmness will not be achieved.

Milk

In milk ice cream, cream ice cream and heavy cream ice cream, the largest "water content" comes from the milk or cream.

As a basic principle, cow's milk with a fat content of at least 3.5 % is always assumed. If low-fat milk is used in production, the fat content must be supplemented by butter or cream. It is defined by law how much fat content the respective type of ice cream must have so that the corresponding designation may be used.

Eggs

Eggs contain fat, water, protein and lecithin, which are needed for the basic mass. Primarily, the egg yolk and the lecithin it contains are needed. The lecithin forms the link between the water and fat molecules, which would otherwise separate from each other. However, it is possible without any problems to do without the egg component in the ice cream and to replace the egg yolk with another binding agent. So if you want to make your ice cream without eggs, you should increase the addition of binder accordingly to achieve the same effect in the end.

Binder for ice cream and sorbet

On the one hand, the binder is responsible for the binding in the ice cream, on the other hand it slows down the crystallization of the ice cream and the sorbets, therefore it is also responsible for a high quality.

The binder we use and recommend consists of locust bean gum, which is primarily responsible for the connection between the water and fat molecules, and carboxymethyl cellulose, which reinforces and stabilizes the effect of the locust bean gum. Both are ingredients for which no legal maximum amounts are specified in the Food Act and which are therefore harmless, especially in smaller quantities.

Invert sugar

Invert sugar consists of fructose and glucose formed by the conversion of granulated sugar (sucrose). Crystalline sugar is transformed into a honey-like substance with the help of water and few acids in the cane sugar inversion.

High quality and professionally produced invert sugar is a viscous, light-colored liquid with 80% sugar content and over 97% invert sugar content after cane sugar inversion. Invert sugar has the great advantage that this sugar crystallizes massively less. Therefore, invert sugar is used for sorbets, ice creams, liqueurs, cocktails and syrups, because there the crystallization is not desired in any way and reduces the quality of the products.