Friday, January 3, 2014

Learning All About Ice Cream

By Marquerite Velasquez


The average American eats approximately 20 quarts of ice cream every year according to statistics, and this can be due to the fact that ice cream is one of the most popular sweet treats in the country. There are wide varieties of these ice cream products available in your local ice cream shops and also in the grocery stores in your locality, and the following are some facts about these products.

In order to officially be labeled as ice cream, this treat must contain 10% or more of milk fat. Generally sweeteners account for an additional 12 to 16% of the product's ingredients, but one of the main ingredients in ice cream is actually air. Ice milk is a similar product, but this is a treat that contains less than 10% of milk fat. Sometimes this is labeled as low-fat ice cream and it is not only lower in fat, it's also typically cheaper. The sugar or sweetener amount in ice milk and ice cream is about the same.

Another popular frozen treat is sherbet, a frozen product like ice milk and also contains less milk fat compared to that with ice cream, but this product contains more sweeteners and sugar than ice milk and also ice cream. Sorbet is a product also you can find in your local ice cream shops, but this one is a frozen dessert from frozen and sweetened fruit juice or fruit puree that is also sweetened. It is not ice cream but is a nice alternative for people who follow a dairy-free or vegan diet.

Aside from the above mentioned products, there are also other treats similar to ice cream, like if we will mention, is the frozen custard. This is a product with the cream and sugar like in ice cream, but is a product containing eggs. This product, when frozen, can be denser compared to that with ice cream. This is a frozen product invented in the early 20th century in Coney Island and the founders were two ice cream vendors who realized that when eggs were added to the product, the texture of the ice cream improved and the addition seemed to help this product stay cold for periods much longer.

Another frozen delight that Americans love is gelato, a product that is also a favorite in Italy. This is a frozen product similar to American ice cream but with less air in the product, and it may be interesting to note that gelato is also "ice cream" in Italian. It also can be frozen custard with egg yolks added, much like with zabaione where it contains sweet wine.

If you are searching for the Southland's best frozen treats, check out the ice cream sandwiches in Culver City at YoKuMon. This unique Culver City ice cream shop offers a gourmet $2 ice cream cookie sandwich. Not only is the ice cream rich and creamy, the cookies that make the sandwich are freshly baked throughout the day. There are many different varieties of cookie and you can pair the cookies up with any flavor of ice cream.




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