Ice cream

Ice cream (originally iced cream) is a frozen dessert made from dairy products such as cream (or equivalents), combined with flavourings and sweeteners. This mixture is super-cooled by stirring while reducing its temperature to prevent large ice crystals from forming. Traditionally, the temperature has been reduced by placing the ice cream mixture into a container that is immersed in a mixture of crushed ice and salt. The salt allows liquid water to be below the freezing point of pure water, allowing the immersed container with cream to make better contact with the melted water/ice mixture.

Ice cream throughout the world

Globalisation has made available ice cream styles from around the world. For example, Japanese mochi ice cream is now popular in California, even outside of Japanese restaurants and Little Tokyos.

Related Topics:
Globalisation - Japan - Mochi - California

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Italy

Ice cream today is a traditional dessert in Italy, where it is still mostly hand-made, though one of the most known ice cream machine makers is the Carpigiani.

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Before the cone became popular for serving ice cream, 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").

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Italian ice-cream parlours (Eisdielen) are common and popular in Germany where many Italians have immigrated and set up business.

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United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, much of the lower-priced ice cream sold, including that from some ice cream vans, has no milk or milk solids content at all. Instead, it is made with vegetable oil, usually hydrogenated palm kernel oil. However, 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.

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - Vegetable oil - Hydrogenated

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In apparent contradiction to the above paragraph, the Ice Cream Alliance Ltd, a trade association for the UK ice cream industry, says in http://www.ice-cream.org/UPLOAD/ICAFACTSHEET4.PDF that

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1. LEGAL STANDARDS

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It is necessary for a manufacturer to be aware of the compositional requirements of the country in which he intends to sell his ice cream. In the UK this is a minimum of 5% fat and a minimum of 2.5% milk protein (Schedule 8, the Food Labelling Regulations 1996).

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