Module 3: Whip

The second goal you’ll explore is how to make an ice cream, scoopable.

Scoopable ice cream comes from a clever mix of chemistry and ingredients that make ice cream “perform” in a certain way.

Let’s go through them, scoop by scoop.

When food scientists choose ingredients and methods to make ice cream, they ask:

How will this affect the ice cream? What ingredient or method will give us the best outcome?

They’re thinking about performance properties. Or, how ingredients and methods impact the ice cream’s:

Remember how milk and cream stop ice crystals from getting too big? Their performance properties helped improve the texture of the ice cream.

We all know sugar is good at making things sweet. But did you know it has another performance property that helps make ice cream scoopable?

It’s time to bring back a concept you might be familiar with…

Freezing point depression

Remember this? Freezing point depression is when water’s freezing temperature is lowered.

Sugar’s impact on freezing point depression looks like this:

• Step 1: Sugar is added into the ice cream mixture
• Step 2: Sugar dissolves into the water molecules
• Step 3: Sugar lowers the freezing point of the water molecules in the milk and cream
• Step 4: Smaller ice crystals form because the freezer’s not cold enough to form big ones
• Step 5: Your ice cream is scoopable and soft instead of hard and icy!

Air is the invisible ingredient in ice cream. But for something you can’t see, it has a huge effect on ice cream’s texture.

Air is added into ice cream when you churn it or whip it. By doing this, you’re adding tiny air bubbles that get trapped amongst the ice crystals and fat. These air bubbles make the ice cream lighter and fluffier instead of frozen solid.

The measure of how much air gets whipped into the ice cream is called overrun. Food scientists can calculate overrun by working out the weight difference between 1 cup of ice cream mixture, vs 1 cup of ice cream.

In microscopic ice cream imagery, you can figure out how much overrun is in ice cream by counting the number of air bubbles – it’s not always about their size! See for yourself.

Are you ready to bring together everything you’ve learned about scoopability in your second ice cream creation?

Mīharo. Today you:

• Unpacked ice cream goal 2: scoopable
• Learned about performance properties
• Explored how sugar and air impacts scoopability
• Compared whipped and unwhipped ice cream on a cold plate