History and Making of Ice cream
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ice
cream is a frozen dessert made from dairy
products, such as cream
(or substituted ingredients), combined with flavorings
and sweeteners,
such as sugar.
This mixture is stirred slowly while
cooling to prevent large ice
crystals
from forming. This results a smooth textured ice cream. Although the term
"ice cream" is sometimes used to mean frozen desserts and snacks in
general, it is usually reserved for frozen desserts and snacks made with a high
percentage of milk
fat. Frozen custard, yoghurt, sorbet and other
similar products are sometimes also called ice cream. Governments often
regulate the use of these terms based on quantities of ingredients. Ice cream
is generally served as a chilled product. It may also be found in dishes where
the coldness of the ice cream is used as a temperature contrast, for example,
as a topping on warm desserts, or even in fried
ice cream. Some commercial institutions such as creameries
specialize in serving ice cream and products that are related.
Modern industrially produced ice cream is
made from a mixture of ingredients:
These ingredients, along with air
incorporated during the stirring process, make up ice cream. Generally, less
expensive ice creams contain lower-quality ingredients (for example, vanilla bean may
be replaced by artificial vanillin), and more air is incorporated, sometimes as much
as 50% of the final volume. Artisan-produced ice creams often contain very
little air, although some is necessary to produce the characteristic creamy
texture of the product. Generally speaking, the finest ice creams have between
3% and 15% air. Because most ice cream is sold by volume, it is economically
advantageous for producers to reduce the density of the product in order to cut
costs. Ice cream has also been hand-packed and sold by weight. The use of
stabilizers rather than cream and the incorporation of air also decrease the fat and energy content of
less expensive ice creams, making them more appealing to those on diets. Ice creams
come in a wide variety of flavors, often with additives such as chocolate flakes
or chips, nuts, fruit, and small candies/sweets. Some of the most popular ice cream flavors are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry,
and Neapolitan (a combination of the three). Many
people also enjoy ice cream sundaes, which often have ice cream, hot fudge, nuts, whipped
cream, cherries or a variety of other toppings. Other toppings include
cookie crumbs, butterscotch, sprinkles, banana
sauce, marshmallows or different varieties of candy.
Before the development of modern
refrigeration, ice cream was a luxury item reserved for special occasions.
Making ice cream was quite laborious. Ice was cut commercially from lakes and
ponds during the winter and stored in large heaps in holes in the ground or in
wood-frame ice houses, insulated by straw. Ice cream was made by hand in a
large bowl surrounded by packed ice and salt. The temperature of the
ingredients was reduced by the mixture of crushed ice and salt. The salt water
was cooled by the ice, and the action of the salt on the ice causes it to
(partially) melt, absorbing latent heat bringing the mixture below the freezing
point of pure water.
The immersed container can also make better thermal contact with the salty
water and ice mixture than it could with ice alone.
The hand-cranked churn, which still used
ice and salt for cooling, was invented by an American named Nancy Johnson in
1846, making production possible on site and avoiding the problem of continuous
chilling between production and consumer. Ice cream became a popular item for
the first time. The world's first commercial ice cream factory was opened in Baltimore, Maryland in
1851, by Jacob Fussell, a dairy farmer. An unstable demand for his milk led him
to mass produce ice cream. This allowed the previously expensive concoction to
be offered in the city at reduced prices. Fussell opened ice cream parlors as
far west as
The development of industrial refrigeration
by German engineer Carl
von Linde during the 1870s eliminated the need to cut and store natural ice
and when the continuous-process freezer was perfected in 1926, it allowed
commercial mass production of ice cream and the birth of the modern ice cream
industry.
The most common method for producing ice
cream at home is to use an ice
cream maker, in modern times generally an electrical device that churns the
ice cream mixture while cooled inside a household freezer, or using a solution
of pre-frozen salt and water, which gradually melts while the ice cream
freezes. Some more expensive models have an inbuilt freezing element. A newer
method of making home-made ice cream is to add liquid
nitrogen to the mixture while stirring it using a spoon or spatula. Some
ice cream recipes call for making a custard, folding in whipped cream, and
immediately freezing the mixture.
Ice cream can be mass
produced and thus is widely available in developed parts of the world. Additionally,
ice cream can be purchased in large tubs and squrounds from
supermarkets and grocery stores, in smaller quantities from ice cream shops, convenience
stores, and milk
bars, and in individual servings from small carts or vans at public events.
In
Ancient civilizations had saved ice for
cold foods for thousands of years. Mesopotamia
has the earliest icehouses in existence, 4,000 years old, beside the Euphrates
River, where the wealthy stored items to keep them cold. The pharaohs of Egypt had ice shipped
to them. In the fifth century BC, ancient Greeks sold snow
cones mixed with honey and fruit in the markets of Athens. Persians,
having mastered the storage of ice, ate ice cream well into summer. Roman
emperor Nero
(37–68) had ice brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings.
Today's ice treats likely originated with these early ice delicacies.
Many myths surround ice cream and its true
origin. Many believe that it evolved from cooled wines and flavored Ices
around, and might have come from
In 400 BC, Persians
invented a special chilled pudding-like dish, made of rosewater and
vermicelli
which was served to royalty during summers. The ice was mixed with saffron, fruits,
and various other flavors. The treat, widely made today in Iran, is called "faludeh",
and is made from starch (usually wheat), spun in a sieve-like machine which
produces threads or drops of the batter, which are boiled in water. The mix is
then frozen, and mixed with rosewater and lemons, before serving.
According to Mageulonne Toussaint-Samat in
her History of Food, "the Chinese may be credited with inventing a
device to make sorbets and ice cream. They poured a mixture of snow and saltpetre
over the exteriors of containers filled with syrup, for, in the same way as
salt raises the boiling-point of water, it lowers the freezing-point to below
zero." The Chinese put sugar in the ice and sold it as food
during the summer. During the Song
Dynasty (宋朝) people began putting
fruit juice in the water used to create the ice; milk began to be used in the Yuan
Dynasty (元朝), as the Mongols,
who adopted a nomadic culture, introduced milk to China, where milk was not
widely used in cuisine at that time; milk and dairy
products in general are still rare in Chinese cuisine.
As early as the sixteenth century, the
Mughal emperors used relays of horsemen to bring ice from the Hindu Kush
to Delhi where it
was used in fruit sorbets. Kulfi is a type of
ice cream which is very closely related to the Persian ice cream and is still
sold by road side vendors and in restaurants.
The West
Popular folklore asserts that Marco Polo
saw ice cream being made on his trip to China and took the
recipe home to Italy
with him on his return.
However, in his writings Marco Polo never claimed to have introduced ice cream
to the west.
The Roman emperor Nero Claudius Caesar
Augustus appreciated a sort of local ice cream during the 37-68 AD.
When Italian duchess Catherine de Medici married the duc d’Orléans
in 1533, she is said to have brought with her Italian chefs who had recipes for
flavored ices or sorbets and introduced them in
Ice cream made with a milk mixture was
first recorded in Europe in
The first recipe for flavored ices in
French appears in 1674, in Nicholas Lemery’s Recueil de curiositéz rares et
nouvelles de plus admirables effets de la nature.
Recipes for sorbetti saw
publication in the 1694 edition of Antonio Latini's Lo Scalco alla Moderna
(The Modern Steward).
Recipes for flavored ices begin to appear
in François Massialot's Nouvelle Instruction pour les Confitures, les
Liqueurs, et les Fruits starting with the 1692 edition. Massialot's recipes
result in a coarse, pebbly texture. However, Latini claims that the results of
his recipes should have the fine consistency of sugar and snow.
The first Ice cream invented in the
In the 18th century cream, milk, and egg
yolks began to feature in the recipes of previously dairy-free flavored ices,
resulting in ice cream in the modern sense of the word. The 1751 edition
of The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy by Hanna Glasse features a
recipe for raspberry cream ice. 1768 saw the publication of L'Art de Bien
Faire les Glaces d'Office by M. Emy, a cookbook devoted entirely to recipes
for flavored ices and ice cream.
Ice cream was introduced to the
After the 1830s when ice-making machines
became available, ice cream gradually became more widely available. In 1843,
Nancy Johnson invented the first small-scale handcranked ice cream freezer.
This was followed by the invention of the ice
cream soda, probably invented by Robert Green in 1874, although there is no
conclusive evidence to prove his claim.
The ice
cream sundae originated in the late 19th century. Several men claimed to
have created the first sundae, but there is no credible evidence to back up any
of their stories. Some versions say that the sundae was invented to circumvent blue laws,
which forbade serving sodas on Sunday. Both the ice
cream cone and banana split became popular in the first years of the
20th century. The inventor of the ice cream cone is not clearly established.
Some claim it was served as a waffle-like pastry at the 1904 World's Fair in
The history of ice cream in the 20th
century is one of great change, and increases in availability and popularity.
In the
Ice cream became popular throughout the
world in the second half of the 20th century after cheap refrigeration
became common. There was an explosion of ice cream stores and of flavors and
types. Vendors often competed on the basis of variety. Howard
Johnson's restaurants advertised "a world of 28 flavors." Baskin-Robbins
made its 31 flavors ("one for every day of the month") the
cornerstone of its marketing strategy. The company now boasts that it has
developed over 1000 varieties.
One important development in the 20th
century was the introduction of soft
ice cream. A chemical research team in Britain
(of which a young Margaret Thatcher was a member)
discovered a method of doubling the amount of air in ice cream, which allowed
manufacturers to use less of the actual ingredients, thereby reducing costs.
This ice cream was also very popular amongst consumers who preferred the
lighter texture, and most major ice cream brands now use this manufacturing
process. It also made possible the soft ice cream machine in which a cone is
filled beneath a spigot on order.
The 1980s saw a return of the older,
thicker, ice creams being sold as "premium" varieties. Ben
and Jerry's, Beechdean, and Häagen-Dazs
fall into this category.
Snow cones,
made from balls of crushed ice topped with sweet syrup served in a paper cone,
are consumed in many parts of the world. The most common places to find snow
cones in the
A popular springtime treat in maple-growing areas
is maple toffee,
where boiled maple syrup is poured over fresh snow congealing in a
toffee-like mass, and then eaten from a wooden stick used to pick it up from
the snow.
Ice creams and sorbets are frozen while
being stirred or agitated, resulting in a light texture. Ice pops are
quiescently frozen — frozen at rest without stirring.
Per capita, Australians
and New
Zealanders are among the leading ice cream consumers in the world, eating
18 litres and 20 litres each per year respectively, behind the United States of America where people eat
23 litres each per year.[10]
Italian ice-cream parlours (Eisdielen)
have been popular in Germany since the 1920s, when many Italians immigrated and
set up business. As in
Ice cream is a traditional dessert in
Before the cone became popular for serving
ice cream, in English speaking countries, Italian street vendors would serve
the ice cream in a small glass dish referred to as a "penny lick"
or wrapped in waxed paper and known as a hokey-pokey (possibly a corruption of the Italian
"ecco un poco" - "here is a little").[11]
Some of the most known ice cream machine
makers are Italian companies Carpigiani, Crm-Telme, Corema-Telme, Technogel, Cattabriga,
Matrix, Promag.
In 1651 Francesco dei Coltelli opened an
ice cream café in Paris
and the product became so popular that during the next 50 years another 250
icecafés opened in
The first British recipe for ice cream was
published in Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts in 1718.
The recipe did not include a process for making the ice smooth and it must have
been coarse with ice crystals.
Ice cream remained an expensive and rare
treat in the
In the United
Kingdom today, much of the lower-priced ice cream sold, including that from
some ice cream vans, has little milk or milk solids content, being made with vegetable
oil, usually hydrogenated palm kernel oil. Ice cream sold as dairy
ice cream must contain milk fat, and many companies make sure that dairy
is prominently displayed on their packaging or businesses.
The Ice Cream Alliance Ltd, a trade
association for the
In the
Although ice cream in its modern form is a
relatively new invention, ice treats have been enjoyed since ancient times.
During the 5th century BC, ancient Greeks ate snow mixed with honey and fruit in the markets of
Since before the creation of the modern
state of
Many fruit-flavored ice creams do not
contain cream or milk but are fruit sherbets.
There are also ice creams made from yogurt. The variety
associated most with
Ice cream is a popular dessert in
Mrs Marshall's Cookery Book, published in 1888, endorsed serving ice cream in
cones, but the idea probably predated that. Agnes Marshall was a celebrated cookery
writer of her day and helped to popularise ice cream. She patented and
manufactured an ice cream maker and was the first person to suggest using
liquefied gases to freeze ice cream after seeing a demonstration at the Royal
Institution.
It is also said that on July 23, 1904
Charles E. Minches was looking to imporve business. By filling pastry cones
with two scoops of ice cream Charles Minches invented the ice cream cone. The
ice cream cone was first tried at the 1904 Saint Louis World Fair.
The popularity of ice cream cones
increased greatly during the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.
According to legend, at the World's Fair an ice cream seller had run out of
clean dishes, so could not sell any more ice cream. Next door to the ice cream
booth was the waffle
booth, unsuccessful due to intense heat; the waffle maker offered to make cones
by rolling up his waffles and the new product sold well, and was widely copied
by other vendors.
Using liquid
nitrogen to freeze ice cream is an old idea that is only recently starting
to see commercialization. Some commercial innovations have been documented in
the National Cryogenic Society Magazine "Cold Facts" [6]. The
most noted brands are Dippin' Dots [7], Blue Sky Creamery [8]
and Sub Zero Cryo Creamery [9]. The preparation results in a
column of white condensed water vapor cloud, reminiscent of popular depictions
of witches'
cauldrons. The ice cream, dangerous to eat while still "steaming," is
allowed to rest until the liquid nitrogen is completely vaporized. Some ice
cream is often frozen to the sides of the container, and must be allowed to
thaw.
Making ice cream with liquid nitrogen has
advantages over conventional freezing. Due to the rapid freezing, the crystal grains
are smaller, giving the ice cream a creamier texture, and allowing one to get
the same texture by using less milkfat.
The following is a partial list of
ice-cream-like frozen desserts and snacks:
Some ice creams are made without milk; for
example with soy
milk or rice
milk instead. A minority of non-dairy ice creams are based on nut butter.
Another variation is ice cream made with coconut
milk.
An ice pop is a frozen water
dessert on a stick that is colored and flavored. It is made by freezing
colored, flavored liquid (such as fruit juice) around a stick. Once solid, the
stick is then used as a handle to hold the ice pop. In Ireland the term "ice pop" is used,
but it is usually called an ice lolly (or, more rarely, lollyice[1]) in
the United
Kingdom, ice block in Australia and
New
Zealand, and icy pole in Australia (from the brand name Icy Pole).
In the United States and Canada it is almost
always called a popsicle due to the early popularity of the Popsicle brand,
and the word has become a genericized trade mark to mean any ice pop,
irrespective of brand.
The first recorded ice pop was created in
1905 by 11-year-old Frank Epperson in San
Francisco, who left a glass of soda water powder and water outside in his
back porch with a wooden mixing stick in it. That night the temperature dropped
below freezing, and when Epperson returned to the drink the next morning, he
found that the soda water had frozen inside the glass, and that by running it
under hot water, he was able to remove (and eat) the frozen soda water chunk
using the stick as a handle.
The ice-lollipop was introduced to the
public for the first time at an Oakland ball for firemen in 1922. In 1923, Epperson applied
for a patent for "frozen ice on a stick" called the Epsicle ice pop,
which he re-named the Popsicle, allegedly at the instigation of his children.
This brand is now one of the most famous in the
In the
