Food chemistry Homework 2: Water: 1) Ice cream is a frozen dessert whose texture
ID: 574692 • Letter: F
Question
Food chemistry
Homework 2: Water: 1) Ice cream is a frozen dessert whose texture is partially determined by the size and quantity of ice crystals that form during production. You have a friend who very much enjoys making homemade ice cream. He/she is able to produce a product for immediate consumption which has a smooth, velvety texture. However, when he/she saves the leftovers by storage in the freezer (slow rate of hard freezing), the texture becomes very coarse and gritty. Your friend knows you have taken a course in Food Chemistry and asks you for an explanation why his/her hard frozen product has a much more coarse texture compared to commercial ice cream (rapid rate of hard freezing). What explanation would you provide?Explanation / Answer
Answer 1: This happens because of two reasons: (i) Use of freezing agent: The commercial way of making ice-cream uses freezing agent (for example: Liquid Nitrogen) for the fast and smooth freezing of the ice-cream. The instant freezing guarantees that virtually no large ice crystals will have time to form. But in the case of homemade ice-creams this freezing agent is missing thats why they take large time to freeze which allows to form large ice crystals. This is the main reason why homemade ice-cream have more hard and course texture than commercial one.
(ii) Other reason is that during commercial production final temperatures between – 10 and -12 degrees C are considerd to be ideal for hardening purspose. But most freezers at home keep a lower temperature than that, that's why home-made ice cream typically freezes harder than it would if kept in the dedicated ice cream freezers of an ice cream parlour.