TECHNOLOGY OF ICE-CREAM

Introduction
 Ice cream is a frozen dairy product made by suitable blending
and processing of cream and other milk products, together
with sugar and flavour, with or without stabilizer or color, and
with the incorporation of air during the freezing process.

 Ice cream is a colloidal emulsion having dispersed phase as fat

globules.

 The end form is made into foam by incorporating air cells

which is frozen to form dispersed ice cells.
Ice-cream (Legal definition)
 Ice-Cream, Kulfi, Chocolate Ice Cream or Softy Ice-Cream
means the frozen milk product obtained by freezing a
pasteurized mix prepared from milk or other products
derived from milk, or both, with or without addition of
nutritive sweeteners and other permitted non-dairy
ingredients.

 It may contain incorporated air and shall be frozen hard

except in case of softy ice-cream where it can be frozen to a
soft consistency.
 COMPOSITION

Milk fat % MSNF % Sugar % Stabilizer Total solids

and %
emulsifier %
Economy 10 10-11 13 -15 0.30-0.50 35-37
Ice Cream

Good 12 11 15 0.30 37.5-39

Average
Ice Cream
 Manufacture
Selection of ingredients

Formulation of ice cream mix

Blending of mix

Pasteurization of mix

Homogenization of mix (I stage 2500 psi, II stage 500 psi)

Cooling and Ageing of mix

Freezing the mix (-4 to -5ºC)

Packaging of ice cream

Hardening and storage of ice-cream (-23 to -29ºC)

 Selection of ingredients
• Good quality materials are essential if the resultant product
need to be satisfactory in all aspects.

• The raw ingredients necessary to provide the components of

ice cream must contain sufficient fat and milk solids in
proportions that can be combined to make a mix of the
desired composition.

• Selection of ingredients depends on their availability,

perishability, convenience in handling, effect on flavour, body
and texture of ice cream, cost, equipments available etc.
 Dairy Ingredients
• Dairy products that supply fat and MSNF – Sweet cream,
Sweet milk, fresh butter, unsweetened, condensed and
evaporated milks , full-cream milk powder.

• Dairy products that supply MSNF alone – Skim milk, skim milk
powder, condensed skim milk, sweet-cream buttermilk.
 Non dairy Ingredients
• Sweetening agents – Cane sugar, beet sugar, corn sugar, corn
syrup, invert sugar, saccharin.
• Stabilizers– Gelatin, sodium alginate, guar gum, CMC,
carageenan, pectin etc.
• Emulsifiers– Mono or di-glycerides of fat forming fatty acids.
• Flavours– Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pineapple, lemon,
banana, mango, orange, etc.
• Colours– Yellow, green, pink, etc.
• Egg solids – Yolk solids
• Fruits & nuts – apple, banana, mango, pine apple, grape,
almond, pistachio, cashew nut, walnut and groundnut.
 Role of Ingredients
• MILK FAT: Fat imparts rich creamy flavour to the ice cream.
Contributes to the body and melting resistance while
producing a smooth texture. Gives stability but impairs
whipping ability.

• MILK solids non FAT: Increases the food value, enhances the
palatability, improve body and texture.
STABILIZERS:
• Influence the movement of water, partly due to their ability
to form H-bonds and partly due to their ability to form a three
dimensional network throughout the liquid which leads to the
immobilization of water.
• The water binding / immobilizing effect improves the storage
stability of ice cream. Furthermore, stabilizers have positive
influence on body and texture of ice cream.
• Stabilizers contribute to the melting resistance of ice cream
and prevent wheying off during melting.
• The dosage of stabilizer combination in ice cream is normally
between 0.1 and 0.3%.
EMULSIFIERS:
• Emulsifiers are by definition substances which make
the formation of an emulsion possible due to their
ability to reduce surface tension.

• Glycerol esters of fatty acids, commercially known as

mono and diglycerides, are the emulsifiers most
commonly used in ice cream.

• Emulsifiers improve whipping properties, body and

texture, air cell distribution and impart richer mouth
feel and creamy sensation.
SWEETENERS:
• Required sugar concentration: 13 – 16%
• Depress the freezing point of the mix and produce smooth
body. Due to their depressing effect on the freezing point,
sweeteners also control the amount of frozen water in ice
cream and thus the softness of the final product.
• Excess sugar in the product leads to slime and low sugar
leads to hardness.
• Natural sweetener: Glucose, Fructose, Sucrose.
• Since sugars are calorie rich, replaced by artificial nutritive
sweetener like Aspartame, Neotame, Sucralose, Saccharin,
Acesulfame-K etc.
 Formulations of Mix
• The fundamental requirement of mix formulation is to obtain
a well balanced mix which also satisfies the legal standards.

• A well balanced mix should always ensure:-

A correct total solids to water ratio – if too high, sandiness

and rough texture and if too low, glassy or icy texture with
weak body.

Usually total solids of 36.0 to 40.0% will result in

organoleptically acceptable ice cream.
 Formulations of Mix
A correct fat to sugar ratio – to prevent fatty mouth feel in
case of high fat ice cream the sugar content has to be raised
accordingly.

For instances 16% fat ice cream should ideally have 17% sugar
as against 15% sugar for economy (10% fat) ice cream.

• For proper formulation of the mix, prior calculation of the mix

with regard to the proportion of ingredients to be added is
mandatory.
 Blending of Mix
• Liquid ingredients are mixed together and heated to 49°C prior
to the addition of all dry ingredients.

• Sodium alginate is mixed with a portion of sugar and slowly

added to the liquid maintained at 71.1°C at a moving agitator
point.

• When gelatin is used, it should be dissolved in nine times water

by weight with equal volumes of sugar before the liquid
temperature reaches 49°C.

• If butter, plastic cream, frozen cream or other frozen products

are used, they should be cut into small pieces and allowed for
complete melting before pasteurization.
 Pasteurization of Mix
• Pasteurization is done to destroy all the pathogenic bacteria in
the mix so as to render the final product safe for human
consumption.

• Rapid heating and holding of the mix at definite temperature

and rapid cooling below 5°C ensures proper pasteurization.

• Batch method, HTST method, Vacreation, UHT pasteurization.

• High temperature pasteurization is preferred as there is a

greater bacterial kill resulting in low bacterial count in ice
cream.
 Homogenizing Mix
• Homogenization of ice cream mix is a most essential step to
make a permanent and uniform suspension of the fat by
reducing the size of the fat droplets to a very small diameter,
preferably not more than 2 µm.

• Homogenization of mix is usually done at temperature ranging

from 63 to77°C.

• A pressure of 2000 to 2500 psi (135 to 170 kg/cm2) with one

valve or 2500 to 3000 psi (170 to 200 kg/cm2) on the first and
500 psi(35 kg/cm2) on the second stage will usually give good
results for an average mix.
 Advantages of
homogenization
• Proper homogenization of the mix will never allow the fat to
form the cream layer
• More uniform ice cream
• Smoother texture
• Improved whipping ability
• Shorter ageing period
• Less opportunity for churning to occur in freezer
 Cooling of Mix
• After pasteurization, the mix should be rapidly cooled to a
temperature below 4°C.

• Unless the mix is cooled to a temperature of 4°C or lower, it

will become very viscous and the ice cream will not melt
down smoothly.

• Also, temperatures below 5°C retard the growth of bacteria.

 Ageing of Mix
• The cooled mix is left to age preferably for a period of 2 to 4 h
at 4°C.

• The changes that occurs during ageing are:

Hydration of milk proteins
Crystallization of fats
Absorption of water by any added hydrocolloids
Viscosity is increased
 Freezing
• Freezing is one of the most important steps in making ice cream,
since it decides the quality, palatability, and yield of the finished
product.

• The freezing process may be divided into two parts:

1) The mix is quickly frozen while being agitated to incorporate air in

such a way as to produce and control formation of the small ice
crystals that are necessary to give smoothness in body and
texture, palatability and satisfactory overrun in the finished ice
cream.
2) When ice cream is partially frozen to the proper consistency, it is
drawn from the freezer into packages and quickly transferred to
cold storage rooms, where the freezing and hardening process is
completed without agitation.
 Changes during freezing process
• The first phase of freezing process accounts for the freezing of
33 to 67 per cent of the water and the second phase (hardening
process) accounts for freezing another 23-57 per cent.

• The temperature of the mix which is put into the freezer drops
very rapidly while the sensible heat is being removed and
before any ice crystals are formed.

• This process takes less than a minute or two. Meanwhile, the

rapid agitation reduces the viscosity by partially destroying the
gel structure and by breaking up the fat-globule clusters and
also hastens incorporation of air into the mix.
• When the freezing point is reached, the liquid water changes to
ice crystals which appear in the mix.

• These ice crystals are practically pure water in a solid form, and
thus the sugar as well as the other solutes becomes more
concentrated in the remaining liquid water.

• Increasing the concentration of the solutes slightly depresses

the freezing point and when the freezing point is continuously
lowered, more ice crystals are formed increasing the
concentration of sugar and other solutes in the remaining liquid
water until the concentration is so great that further freezing
will not occur.

• Thus all the water does not freeze even after long periods in the
hardening room.
 Hardening
• Here the freezing process is continued without agitation until
the temperature of ice cream reaches -18°C or lower,
preferably -26.1°C (-15°F ).

• After the ice cream reaches this point, it is only necessary to

store it at a uniformly low temperature to prevent ice melting
and recrystallization.

• A hardening time of 6-8 h for 19 liters (5 gal) package is

considered as ‘excellent’ operation when performed in
hardening rooms. Quick hardening is desirable, since slow
hardening favours formation of large ice crystals and a
corresponding coarseness of texture.
 Overrun
• Overrun is usually defined as the volume of ice cream
obtained in excess of the volume of the mix. This increased
volume is composed mainly of air incorporated during the
freezing process.

• It is usually expressed as percentage of overrun. Overrun of

ice cream is 90-100%.

• The amount of air that should be incorporated depends

upon the composition of the mix and the way it is
processed, and is regulated so as to give the percentage of
over run or yield that will give proper body, texture and
palatability necessary to good quality ice cream.
 Calculating over run
% overrun= volume of ice cream- volume of mix x 100
volume of mix

% overrun= Wt. of unit volume of mix- Wt. of unit volume of ice cream x 100
Wt. of unit volume of ice cream
 Judging and grading
Score card of ice-cream

Item Perfect score

Flavour........................................................................................45
Body and texture........................................................................30
Bacteria.......................................................................................15
Color and package.......................................................................5
Melting quality.............................................................................5
Total ....................................................................................100
 Judging and grading
• An ideal ice-cream should be packed in an attractive
container, possess a typically pleasant and desirable flavour,
have a close, smooth and uniform body and texture, desirable
melting properties, uniform natural colour and have a low
bacterial count.
 Defects in Ice-cream
• Flavour defects:
High, Too sweet, Lacks sweetness, Acid, Cooked, Stale,
Oxidized, Rancid, Salty, Storage, Bitter, Foreign

• Body defects:
Crumbly, Soggy, Weak

• Texture defects:
Greasy/buttery, Icy/coarse/grainy, Fluffy, Sandy
 Defects in Ice-cream
Crumbly: brittle, falls apart when dipped.
Fluffy: large air cells, disappears quickly in mouth, very weak.
Greasy: a distinct greasy coating of the mouth surface after
expectoration, a tallowy sensation on the lips after evaluation.
Gummy: feels some what sticky like gum between tongue and roof of
mouth.
Icy/coarse: most common texture defect, not smooth, ice crystals or
particles.
Sandy: one of the most objectionable defects in ice cream; fine hard
particles sand-like, lactose crystals.
Soggy: heavy, doughy, pudding-like.
Weak: lacks body and resistance, low solids, watery, more like ice milk
 Defects in Ice-cream
• Colour defects:
Dull, Not uniform, Too high/vivid, Too pale/lacking colour,
Unnatural colour

• Melting quality:
Does not melt/ delayed melting, Flaky/lacks uniformity,
Foamy/frothy, Curdy, Wheying-off, Watery/Low melting
resistance