The advantages of the Stick

How and why our homemade ice cream on stick tastes good

Because it meets the healthiest values of nutrition, taste, naturalness, homemade freshness, in a creamy, full-bodied semi-solid structure, also known as ice cream.

What transforms a mix of good ingredients into an ice cream?

When the water inside a balanced mix is frozen, the mix becomes ice cream.

What determines the quality of homemade ice cream on stick?

The correct answer is the combination between ingredients and production process. Because the ingredients are vital for taste and authenticity of the ice cream, and the production product determines the structure and preservation over time.

When frozen at extremely low temperatures, the water in the mix changes state, transforming the mix from liquid to ice cream.

To make a good ice cream on stick, this cooling must take place in the shortest time possible and at a very low temperature.

Doing so causes the micro crystallisation of water, i.e, rapid freezing at very low temperatures creates very small ice crystals, invisible to the eye and palate. This physical process makes the ice cream creamy in a full bodied structure and guarantees a long duration keeping all the organoleptic and structural qualities intact for months.

Deterioration of the ice cream

As you know, water is the only natural elements that increases in volume when frozen. This condition may vary according to the freezing temperature: the slower it freezes, the larger the ice crystal inside the ice cream.

Therefore, the final result varies according to the time it will take us to freeze the water and the maximum temperature encountered by our mix.

If the freezing does not take place at very low temperatures, the crystallization process continues in the display increasing the volume of the water in the ice cream and therefore its deterioration.

Ice cream on stick production process with La Ghiacciola

PRODUCTION TEMPERATURE : -32°C

STORAGE TEMPERATURE : -18°C

Under these conditions the crystallisation process of water is blocked: if the ice cream is produced at a lower temperature than the conservation temperature, water will not re-start the crystallisation process and therefore the size of the crystal will not increase.

Industrial ice cream is made following this production process, which also uses blown-in air at 50% to increase the perception of cold. This greatly penalises the perception of taste. The use of flavours is required, o overcome this imbalance because mass is reduced compared to the volume of the finished product.

Example of production with batch freezer

The following numbers are usually seen for the temperature management of homemade production with the batch freezer for scooped ice cream:

PRODUCTION: -9°C

STORAGE: -18°C

The crystallisation process is inevitable under these conditions, and so is the increase of the size of the ice crystal for the opposite process of the one described above.

The ice cream maker takes all possible measures against the natural occurrence of crystallisation. One option is to find recipes and ingredients that allow to preserve the ice cream at temperatures closer to production temperatures, thus penalising the quality of the product.