commercial ice creams [Science]

2011 Dec 18
I had succumbed to the hype and bought a container of that PC Pumpkin Pie ice cream at Loblaws. Because of the mouth feel of it, I only had one bowl.

I decided to get red of the remainder yesterday in order to make room for more useful freezer items, so I put it in the sink to melt. This morning I took a look and it is room temperature, but still solid.

THIS IS NOT ICE CREAM! IT IS IS A NON-EUCLIDEAN SWEET FROM THE ELDER GODS!

Beware. I'm sure there is science involved, but I'm not even going to read the ingredients in case those very words assault my sanity.

2011 Dec 18
Yeah when my brother in law lived with us about 10 years ago is when I first encountered that about commercial ice cream. He used to leave unfinished bowls of it in the sink and the next morning it would still be solid in the bowl. Scary.

2011 Dec 18
It was worse than that -- he'd dump it OUT of the bowl and it would still be there, bowl-shaped, the next morning.

Horrifying. :)

2011 Dec 18
Maybe they use a lot of thickener in it?
not sure what kind they use though.

I know you can get some natural thickeners to make Middle Eastern ice cream (some kind of gum that comes from a tree...expensive ingredient I am told).
Doubt that is what PC uses though.

I just know that much from speaking to someone who makes ice cream.

2011 Dec 19
Yeah, it's the guar gum that does it. Freaky stuff! Pretty much required for grocery stores, where products might partially thaw and refreeze during shipping and stocking.

Gum-free homemade ice cream, on the other hand, is totally unforgiving. It will start to melt in your bowl. But the taste is amazing and it's never gelatinous.

It's a little like heirloom tomatoes. The perfect red tomatoes in grocery stores taste nasty compared to the ugly warty heirloom ones!

2011 Dec 19
I don't care what's in it, but I love that PC candy cane fudge crackle ice cream that's out this time of year.

2011 Dec 19
I like to call commercial ice cream, industrial ice cream.

Here is a typical list of ingredients found in a flavour called Utterly Delicious.

MILK INGREDIENTS, SUGAR, MODIFIED MILK INGREDIENTS, GLUCOSE SOLIDS, COCOA, PEANUT OIL, PEANUTS, INVERT SUGAR, WATER, COCONUT OIL, HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SALT, CORN STARCH,CELLULOSE GUM, SOY LECITHIN, GUAR GUM, POLYSORBATE 80, CARRAGEENAN, POTASSIUM SORBATE, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOUR, COLOUR.

So the non melting 'fluff' is not only from guar gum but CORN STARCH,CELLULOSE GUM and possibly SOY LECITHIN(?) and CARRAGEENAN.


2011 Dec 19
Where is the ice cream of my childhood ?

From The Cape Breton Dairymen.

Back in the seventies you could get the following flavours of ice cream: Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Neopolitan and Maple Walnut .... that's it.... no Cookie Dough or Brownie Bits or Candy Pieces .... no Swirls .... no Chunks ... no nothin'.

And how come when you took the Neopolitan ice cream out of the freezer, the Chocolate portion was always (almost) gone ?

2011 Dec 19
I know for the Lebanese ice cream they use Mastic gum- no idea where you can get some, but I was offered some for sale a while ago.
(still have to go back to the store though...).

en.wikipedia.org

I also know that in a lot of pies- like a few at the Green Door they use Agar (kind of seaweed gel) to thicken the berry pie.
My mother has the Green Door cookbook and they have a few dishes with that.

2011 Dec 19
Captain Caper, don't forget butter pecan. Unless they didn't have that flavour in your parts.

As for Neapolitan, I know, one of my brothers loved chocolate as much as I, and the container would quickly become unbalanced as we'd dig through the chocolate column. Some producers would later make Neapolitan in chaotic swirls with the three flavours equally distributed throughout the container and no one flavour easily isolatable.

2011 Dec 20
I usually only buy ice creams with about 4 ingredients if I can, which means I'm pretty much stuck with Haagen Daaz or homemade, which I can live with.

There was a pretty good one from Breyer's a couple of years ago (Breyer's Mostly Cream or something like that), but after a few short months of success they changed the recipe to over 30 ingredients. Grrrrrrrrr.

Yes, ladies. I'm that one guy who has been trained to actually read the labels.

2011 Dec 20
I used to like the Breyer's All Natural for a less-expensive, mostly ice cream dessert, but then they started doing this "Double-churned" thing with it and now it has the same mouthfeel as the cheap frozen dessert "ice creams".

I tend to get the PC Vanilla Bean one now, instead -- when I can find it, anyway..