How to buy ice cream: read the ingredients
Posted by Lynsie Watkins Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:47:00 GMT
Upon starting Perfect Flavor, as with any new business, I began examining how ice cream is made all over the world. I compiled the recipes that I tested countlessly and approved of, and then began to compare my product with that of my competitors'. I began to notice a common trend in ice cream manufacturers, big and small.
We're all used to seeing ingredients on labeling that we don't understand. Strange names seemingly designed using random letters from the alphabet to form a name lacking both cohesiveness and explanation. We're especially used to seeing these names for ingredients in products manufactured by big food companies: Nabisco, Sara Lee, Kraft, Frito-Lay, etc. but in ice cream?
Ice cream's got one of the most simple combination of ingredients out there: eggs, cream, sugar, vanilla-right? Well, unfortunately, wrong. From companies like Breyers to “all natural,” environmentally friendly brands like Ben & Jerry's, Ciao Bella, and even La Loo's, ingredient labels across the board read names like guar gum, soy lecithin, carrageanan, and xantham gum. What are these ingredients? Where are they found?? And how exactly do they make a difference in a food that's easier than PIE to make???
These ingredients are labeled as emulsifiers. An emulsifier is an ingredient in a recipe that aids in the coming together and staying together of a product (a coagulator, if you will). A most common emulsifier in homemade vinaigrettes, for example, is mustard. The mustard fuses both to the oil and vinegar, allowing the dressing to stay mixed rather than separating every 10 minutes. In ice cream, the emulsifier is the incredible, edible egg. It's a beautiful thing, really. Depending upon how many eggs you use, the end result for your ice cream can be anywhere from thin, like ice milk, to thick, like gelato and french custard. Our gelato recipe uses the most eggs out of any other base we create-which is probably why people love our gelato so much. It's creamy, rich, and smooth-so why do ice cream companies who use the same ingredients as we do ALSO use un-natural emulsifiers for their ice cream? The answer is: I HAVE NO CLUE. I make ice cream the old-fashioned, truly natural way-and it tastes just fine. I've sampled all of my known competitors' ice creams, and I think mine is better. The best, in fact. Others agree...we sample our ice cream frequently to friends, family, and colleagues. Everyone that's had our ice cream declares that they'll never go back to conventional ice cream, and why should they? If ice cream companies out there are parading around with names like organic, natural, and environmentally aware-then why doesn't their one and only product reflect that? In fact, interestingly enough, when searching on google using guar gum, carrageanan, and soy lecithin together as key words, every major and minor ice cream brand comes up on a website called www.supercow.com, which displays all ingredient information, including the inclusion of an emulsifier, in web format.
Here's my advice. When shopping for ice cream, follow these simple instructions. Pick up a pint, turn it over and read the ingredients list. If you see anything other than eggs, cream, sugar, vanilla, and flavoring (like strawberries), set it back down and move on. Ice cream is best at its simplest, so don't settle for anything less than the best.
Following this blog is a recipe for my gelato that I am excited to share with you. If you were to purchase gelato from us, this is what you would get. But above all, remember, the number one ingredient that we put into each batch of a our ice cream is LOVE. Whether the FDA will let us put THAT on our ingredients list is another story altogether, but don't worry, we think our product speaks loudly enough for itself.
Lynsie's Perfect Flavor Gelato Recipe
5 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
2 cups whole milk
1 cup cream
2 teaspoons organic pure vanilla extract
Plus 1-2 cups of your perfect flavoring
1. Beat eggs and sugar until light yellow and fluffy.
2. Warm milk over medium heat until hot, but not boiling.
3. Add 1/4 cup hot milk to egg mixture while beating. Add remaining milk and mix well. Return to saucepan and bring mixture to 175 degrees F, whisking constantly. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL-the eggs will scramble.
4. Remove custard from heat and strain into a clean bowl.
5. Add the cup of cold cream to stop cooking of custard.
6. Add vanilla, chill at least 4 hours, and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions for your ice cream maker. If you DO NOT have an ice cream maker, pour custard into container, place in freezer for an hour. Remove from freezer after an hour and blend in a processor or blender. Return to container, freeze for 2 more hours, and repeat process. After this, allow to firm up for at least 4 hours.
**As a special note: all of our ingredients are local when we can get them near us, and organic when we can't. Stay tuned for a listing of all the farms that supply us with our wonderful ingredients. We'll have contact info for each farm, and we encourage those living in Virginia to use these farms as their own personal suppliers either independently or through local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs.