Edible Antifreeze For Smoother Ice Cream

holy_calamity writes "Proteins extracted from gelatin can dramatically improve the quality of ice cream by preventing the growth of ice crystals that ruin its texture. Perfect smooth ice cream has ice crystals around 20 microns in size, but slight thawing and refreezing makes them grow and ruins the mouth feel, making it gritty. The new proteins are similar to those in the blood of the snow flea, an insect able to keep active in sub-zero temperatures." Here are the abstract and the full article as published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Comments

!vegan tag

[EVil Lawyer]

Whoever tagged this "!vegan" should probably get a lesson in the difference between vegan and vegetarian.

I assure you that almost no "ice cream" is actually vegan, because it has CREAM (i.e., from milk) in it. So the addition of this gelatin-extract does not change its status as vegan or non-vegan.

However, !vegetarian would make sense, since gelatin is made from the animal itself, and ice cream does not generally contain any animal parts (as far as I know!).

p.s. FWIW, I eat animals myself, but think gelatin (ground horse hooves) is kinda gross.

Re:!vegan tag

[Bartab]

Every animal I eat is a vegetarian.

Re:We don't need this

[Bartab]

Most, nearly all, of the problems with re-freezing come due to the defrost cycles of automatic cycle residential freezers.

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[illegalcortex]

When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring agent in a hand-turned ice-cream maker and it was yuumm. Very different from the goo they sell today Just curious, but have you ever tried making it at home NOW? These days they have some pretty spiffy ice cream makers in the $40 range. Here's the one I have:
http://www.cuisinart.com/catalog/product.php?product_id=45&item_id=82&cat_id=10

It has a sealed bucket filled with some goo with an incredibly low freezing point. You just leave it in the freezer and pull it out when you are ready for ice cream. Put the bucket on the machine and plug it in. You mix up your incredients, which are typically real milk/cream, sugar and a bit of flavoring and dump it in the bucket. Then you turn the machine on. Thirty minutes later, you have ice cream that is already cold enough to eat. MUCH more solid than a lot of the old hand-cranked ones. Stick what you don't eat immediately in a tupperware container in the freezer and finish it at your leisure. Clean up is, as they say, "a breeze."

Alton Brown did a couple of Good Eats episodes on making ice cream this way. The second one is dedicated to making "premium" style ice cream at home.

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[0100010001010011]

Breyer's is about as close as you're going to get even then that's only on their "All Natural" line.

(Vanilla)
INGREDIENTS: MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, NATURAL FLAVOR, NATURAL TARA GUM.

Here is their "Fat Free" Vanilla:

INGREDIENTS: SKIM MILK, SUGAR, POLYDEXTROSE, CORN SYRUP, MALTODEXTRIN, NATURAL FLAVOR, CREAM, PROPYLENE GLYCOL MONOESTERS, MONO & DIGLYCERIDES, CELLULOSE GUM, CAROB BEAN GUM, GUAR GUM, CARRAGEENAN, ANNATTO (FOR COLOR), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, ICE STRUCTURING PROTEIN.

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[jbengt]

When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring . . .

Ha, then yours wouldn't qualify to bear the label "Ice Cream", as milk doesn't have enough fat in it for the FDA.
Sadly, adding junk processed butterfat type substances could bring it up to standards.

And as far as snow flea-like food-derived chemicals, they're probably (but not necessarily) better than the propylene glycol that can sometimes be found listed as an ingredient in cheap popsicles, and occasionaly in cheap ice creams.
The traditional, old-time way of increasing smoothness is to add a bit of egg to the ice cream. I believe lecithin and gums are what are used for that purpose in factory foods.