Page 110 - #61 English

I Ice Cream

Stella: Let’s analyze milk composition first. Milk contains about 3.5%
fat, 3% proteins, 4% carbonhydrates, 1% of minor elements and 87.5%
water. All these solid ingredients in milk have very important significance
for gelato. Fat in milk is called butterfat, from which we taste the dairy
fragrance. So the more butterfat it contains, the stronger the diary fragrance will be,
and the more smooth will be the texture. Except for milk, we can add other ingredients
to enlarge butterfat content like cream, butter and so on. The more fat, the more
calories, so if we don’t want to become fat, we can adjust the quatity of butterfat
based on our needs. Or we can choose not to add fat, which could be called zero-fat
gelato. Then protein. Protein plays a very important role in improving the taste of ge-
lato. It makes gelato softer, more fluffy and smoother. Gelato without protein tastes
like blended ice. So we need it for better taste. The last one is carbonhydrate. Carbs
in milk are mainly from lactose. There are easy to be crystalized in low temperature
and crystals impact the mouthfeel of gelato too. If we add more lactose in gelato, it is
easy to melt and hard to shape. What’s more, many people have lactose intolerance and
diarrhea caused by it. So far, lactose-free milk is rare to see, and it is very expensive. So
what we can do now is to control the lactose quantity added to gelato.

Hongwu Guo: Having the proportion of 40%-60% in all gelato ingre-
dients, milk’s quality sets the quality of gelato. Currently, most popu-
lar kinds of milk purchased by gelato professionals on the market are:
1. UHT milk; 2. pasteurized milk; 3. reconstituted milk based on milk
powder; 4. unpasteurized fresh milk; 5. Buffalo milk in South China. Although Buf-
falo milk yield is relatively low, it contains more protein, amino acid, butterfat,
vitamins, minor elements etc. than Holsteins milk. So the quality of Buffalo milk is
the highest on the market. The main nutrient in milk is protein, and the basic struc-
ture of proteins is amino acids. The composition of amino acid will never change
after no matter which kind of process. So the UHT milk and pasteurized milk has
no big difference in nutritional function. But in terms of flavor and stability, for
UHT milk and reconstituted milk, the ultra-high temperature sterilization process
will break milk’s appearance and has a negative impact on milk’s flavor. For ex-
ample, the protein denaturation will occurr in ultra-high temperature. The intensive
heat makes milk smell streamed
and caramelized, which is totally
different from its original smell.
Also protein denaturation will de-
crease its water-holding capability, We can make mix flavor ice
and further influent the smooth
texture and stability of gelato. Heat cream by combining two or
treating of pasteurized milk is soft,
so this processing method can keep more flavors together.
milk’s flavor well. Fresh milk will
be kept and stored at a temperature
of 4 ℃ once produced, which
means it will not be processed by
heat treatment, so its flavor is the best. So, as excellent gelato chefs, we should
choose the most appropriate milk, based on the location and equipment.

Viv Li: Gelato itself is a kind of dairy-based ice cream. In order to
keep its dairy flavor and improve its mouthfeel, various artificial
emulsifier, stabilizer, fragrance, colorings are added to industrial
ice cream. In fact, they are all abandoned in real gelato. High quality
natural milk and cream are the most important guarantees of rich and smooth
taste of gelato. Milk proportion in gelato can reach as high as 65%-70%. That is why,
it’s reasonable that the quality of gelato is determined by its proportion of milk.

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