Introduction

As we saw earlier, Gelato is an incredibly complex product, composed of a variety of substances in different states interacting with each other. To complicate matters further, it is served at a temperature outside the range found on most places on earth.

If that was not enough, the above must happen within the requirements of the four cardinal virtues of Consistency, Mouthfeel, Flavour and Visuals. This may give an idea of how making this happen consistently and dependably involves a complex production chain and strict processes.

In this article we will dissect this production chain to have an overview of all that goes on when we are actually making Gelato.

Read on!

In Gradibus Exitum

They say the one thousand mile journey is taken step by step. It is the same with Gelato making — in order to come up with the dessert of the Gods, a number of steps are followed, in which different Materials are used, which must be put together and changed through certain Processes, according to specific Workflows.

It may sound complicated but is nothing to be scared about. In the following sections we will break each category down and in a snap you will understand how they get together.

Let's start with …

1. Materials

These are the physical stuff that either gets into or comes out of our Gelato-making process and can be broadly divided into Input and Output products.

Input products are those that make up the recipe and are mixed together. They can be divided into two groups:

Base Ingredients
The basic substances that provide the foundation on which we will incorporate the flavouring. These will vary according to the type of Gelato and in broad lines usually are:

• Gelato: milk, cream, sugars (sucrose, dextrose, glucose syrup, invert sugar), skimmed milk powder (SMP), stabilisers;
• Crema: same as gelato plus egg yolks;
• Sorbetto: water, sugars, fibre, stabilisers;
• Vegan Gelato: water, sugars, fibre, plant protein and fat, stabilisers.

Flavourings
The ingredients that provide the actual flavour of the Gelato. They come in all shapes and forms, some being more common and others more niche. Flavourings don't necessarily need to be sweet or dessert-related — the chef’s imagination is the limit.

• Nut pastes: Pistachio, hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts, etc.; ground to a paste form;
• Chocolate: Chocolate (in pieces or callets), cocoa powder and/or cocoa mass (sometimes called liquor);
• Fruits: Fresh fruit pieces, pulp or juice;
• Infusions: Coffee grain, tea leaves, vanilla beans, herbs and spices, are left in a liquid mixture in order to incorporate flavour. These can be infused hot (strictly speaking infusion) or cold (usually called macerated);
• Alcoholic: Beer, wine, prosecco, whisky, Aperol.
• Others: Caramel, breads, cakes, biscuits, etc.

Worthy of mention are flavouring finishes. They are slightly different from the flavouring itself in the sense that they are not part of the mixture but are instead added to the frozen cream. They usually come in two varieties:

• Liquid: these are thick sauces or syrups that can be folded in the cream, added as a topping, or as a covering layer. Usually called variegato in Italian, with several names in English (i.e. ripple, sauce, syrup);
• Solid: these are pieces added to the cream, either on top or folded within. They can be whole or crushed nuts, fruit pieces, diced herbs, crumbled or pieced cookies, etc., and are called inclusions.

Output products on the other hand are what comes out of mixing Input Products together, and can be split into three distinct groups:

Base
Depending on the production method used, the first output product created will be the Base. It is essentially a mixture containing all the base ingredients, in a dosage that will yield the desired consistency and mouthfeel; (see Workflows below)

There will normally be a base for each type of Gelato that will be produced. These are usually called: White or Milk Base for classic Gelato; Egg Base for Crema; Vegan Base for Vegan Gelato. Few Gelatiere have a base for Sorbetto, as it is more common to use a Syrup instead.

Some Gelatiere however have specific bases for different types of flavourings (i.e. Chocolate, Nuts, Fruits). The reasoning behind is that different flavourings have different functional characteristics (i.e. Chocolate and Nuts have a lot of fat and solids, while Fruits have little) and by tuning each base to these we achieve more consistency across flavours.

Mix
This is the liquid mixture that contains the flavourings and base ingredients blended together. It contains the taste and smell of the finished product and is fine tuned to yield the desired consistency, flavour and mouthfeel.

Cream
The final product coming out of the freezing process, although not necessarily ready for serving (see Hardening below). Provided the previous steps were followed correctly, it contains all characteristics of consistency, mouthfeel, flavour and visuals.

2. Processes

These are the series of actions taken in order to transform input materials into output ones.

Recipe Development
The cornerstone to achieve the four cardinal virtues of consistency, mouthfeel, visuals and flavour is the recipe. The careful dosage of ingredients is the foundation which will allow us to achieve the results we want. For that reason, most creative Gelatiere spend a considerable amount of time developing recipes for new and classic flavours, to make sure that they are putting out the best results possible.

Achieving this right dosage between ingredients is called balancing (bilanciamento in Italian). The goal is to adjust the amount of each ingredient in the recipe according to their functionality, the ultimate goal being certain parameters acknowledged as most favourable to achieve the four cardinal virtues. Balancing is so fundamental in Gelato making that we will dedicate a whole article to balancing in a future article, so watch this space.

Balancing can be done in several ways:

• Manually: Pen and paper and a little bit of maths are all you need to balance any recipe once you know how it works. That is actually how people did it not long ago, so that is still an option today;
• Spreadsheet: All that there is to balancing are a few calculations, so any spreadsheet application such as MS Excel, Google Sheets or Apple's Numbers can be used to create a versatile balancing tool;
• Dedicated Software: This is the pinnacle of convenience, where all calculations and a considerable database of ingredient parameters are provided as a standard. There are numerous apps available on the market at the moment. I will write a full article dedicated to them, but if you are curious in the meanwhile, just google 'gelato balancing app' and having browsing through the endless options you will find.

Pasteurisation
Dairy and eggs are considered high risk foods (both being an excellent media for microbe growth) so any food containing them will be required to go through a heat process to reduce the risk of food poisoning when sold to the public.

This process is called pasteurisation and is the first process of actual production, and an integral part of any commercial Gelato production workflow.

Parameters vary from country to country depending on food safety regulations, but the most common standards are:

• Low Pasteurisation: Heat to 65° for 30 minutes;
• Mid Pasteurisation: Heat to 72º for 5 minutes;
• High Pasteurisation: Heat to 85° for 5 seconds.

An added benefit of pasteurising our bases is that they are required to activate certain stabilisers, something we will discuss later.

Pasteurisation can be done manually using a stove and a pot, but this is not very practical and dedicated equipment called pasteurisers are used in commercial production.

Lastly, if a flavour does not contain dairy or eggs (i.e. Sorbetto or Vegan) and the stabiliser used doesn’t require heat for activation, pasteurisation is not required. This is called Cold Process, while pasteurising is called Hot Process.

Mixing
This is where the Base (or base ingredients) are combined with the flavourings to produce the Mix.

The usual approach in commercial production is to use a high speed immersion blender to achieve a homogeneous and consistent mixture — the higher the blending speed, the smaller and finer the ingredients are broken up, resulting in improved texture and flavour perception.

Alternative methods include manual whisking, which produces the least optimal results, with higher risk of lumps or grainy pieces); and using cup blenders, which can achieve even higher speeds than immersion blenders but usually have a limited capacity (up to a couple of litres).

At home, either a consumer stick blender or a properly sized cup blender do the job pretty well.

Ageing
As we mentioned in the previous article, a Gelato is a highly complex product in which several physical and chemical reactions occur. Allowing mixtures some time to rest before actually freezing them into a cream will give these reactions a chance to consolidate and yield better results.

Professional labs use dedicated machines that chill and slowly stir the base or mix for optimum ageing. At home, just leaving it in an airtight container already produces great results.

Times will vary from a minimum of 1 hour, a recommended 4 hours, and an ideal of 12 hours. In any case, never more than 72 hours, after which the mixture should be discarded.

Freezing
This is the moment when all the materials and effort put in so far actually turn into what we actually want to do: make Gelato. The process involves simultaneously freezing and agitating the mix to turn it into a semi-solid pasty state.

The agitation causes air to be incorporated (called Overrun). As discussed previously, this added air (in the form of tiny bubbles surrounded by fat and protein) is responsible for the soft and fluffy structure that our palates enjoy so much.

Freezing can be done in one of three ways:

• Manually: Placing the mix in the freezer and agitating it manually at regular intervals. This is the method used by some home enthusiasts.
• In a batch freezer: This is a machine that contains a barrel and a rotating paddle. The mix is placed in the barrel which is cooled by a compressor, gradually lowering its temperature to subzero values, while the paddle agitates it continuously to incorporate air. This is the method used by all artisan Gelaterie. The process of taking the gelato out of the batch freezer is called ‘extraction’ or ‘drawing’.
  The name batch freezer comes from the fact that only a certain amount (determined by the barrel’s capacity) can be produced at once — a batch. Batch freezers come in all shapes and sizes, from small portable machines for home use to humongous metal beasts for large artisan operations.
• In a continuous freezer: Different to its batch cousin, a continuous freezer is able to relentlessly spew out cream as long as it is switched on and fed with mix. This is used for industrial production only, therefore is beyond the scope of our publication and, strictly speaking, no authentic Gelato (with a capital G) can be produced this way.

Hardening
Save rare exceptions, the cream coming out of a batch freezer will not be at serving consistency. To do so would require extreme freezers (to cool the mix down to very low temperatures) and would make the extraction process much more difficult, as the cream would come out considerably harder through the extraction port.

So Gelato is usually extracted between -6° and -9°C, when the structure is stable (i.e. all air has been incorporated) and it is still soft enough to be extracted and moulded in appealing shapes with ease.

To reach the serving temperature, the recently extracted cream will be placed in a blast freezer — which will cool it down to the serving temperature within 10–15 minutes (the quicker the better for quality reasons, as we will see in a future article about ice crystals).

At home however, the cream will be placed in the freezer (which is usually able to cool down 1kg of gelato at a rate of 1° every two hours). Some enthusiasts place a USB powered fan in the freezer to increase cooling speed. Although this may sound a bit over the top, it works quite well.

Serving
Finally the moment to actually enjoy the outcome of all the work we have put in so far has come. Hooray!!

And here too, in order to yield a Gelato with capital G some strict and specifc requirements are enforced. For starters, the recommended serving temperature will range between -10º and -14°C.

Which temperature to choose depends on a number of factors, ranging from recipe formulation to intended method of sale. For practical purposes we will consider a serving temperature of 12°C across our articles, unless otherwise stated.

The relatively high serving temperature (remember that the temperature in a domestic freezer usually ranges between -18° and -24°C) has two main implications. On the one hand, it results in a less cold cream, which keeps not only your sensitive teeth happy but above all your tastebuds: not being frozen to numbness, they can enjoy the flavour much more intensely! On the other, because the cream is not so hard frozen, it is possible to use a spade to serve it, allowing for shaping the scoop in eye catching creative forms.

And there you go, you have learned a way to spot authentic Gelato from copycats: if they are served with scoopers, raise your eyebrows!

3. Workflows

Finally, it is time to talk about workflows. These relate to how processes are grouped and/or linked together depending on the circumstances of the production lab and/or point of sale.

Although individual steps may vary slightly from one producer to another, workflows can be divided into two broad methods of working:

Classic Method
It consists of pasteurising large batches of Bases at once, which are then left to age. Once sufficiently aged, the Base will be blended on demand with flavourings to create Mixes.

Because the flavourings will have their own functional characteristics, the Mix will usually require some form of re-balancing (ribilanciamento in Italian).

The Mix is then batched, hardened and served/stored.

The main advantage of the classic method is workflow optimisation — a lot of time is gained by producing large quantities of Base at once — and its main disadvantage is that it is difficult to fine tune the recipe of each flavour.

It is the method used by virtually all gelaterie with a high volume of production.

Direct Method
In this method no Base is produced in advance and all ingredients (basic and flavourings) are mixed within the same process. Different ingredients may be added at different stages of the pasteurisation process (some of them benefit from higher temperatures, while others can be damaged by it), but the Mix is finished at the end of it, and only ageing is required before batch freezing.

It is a more laborious method because it requires to go through all steps (i.e. weighing, mixing, etc.) for each flavour, but it allows a highly accurate balancing. For this reason it is more commonly used in highly artisan gelaterie with a small production volume, and at home.

Implications of Workflow
Depending on the workflow/method used, the recipe will be formulated differently. A Pistachio recipe, for example, would look like this in a Classic Method environment:

Which would require a separate White Base recipe which might look something like this:

In a Direct Method environment however it would look like this:

The recipes at the top and bottom would yield a very similar Gelato. If you have an experienced eye you may have spotted a detail that might make the bottom one slightly better. And you don't need to be an expert to realise just by looking at the recipes that it is a lot quicker to prepare the one at the top — which is why the Direct Method is preferred by most high volume labs.

So far so good!

Before We Go

I know we have covered a lot of ground in this article and it might have been a lot of information to take in. To make it easier to have a complete overview of everything involved, I created the flow diagram below.

I hope it will help you get the full picture and that it will stay with you.

And this closes this article — you should now have a complete overview of all the materials, steps and machinery used in Gelato making.

Tap on the back!!

Wrapping Up

Making Gelato is a fun activity but involves a myriad of materials and processes which, depending on how they are organised, lead to certain workflows. These are:

Input Products

1. Base Ingredients: Those materials that, when mixed together, provide the foundation upon which flavourings will be added. Normally they will be neutral in flavour. Common examples are milk, cream, sugars, fibres and stabilisers;

2. Flavourings: Those which provide the flavour or flavours of the final product. Examples are fruits, chocolate, nuts (usually in paste form), etc., but include a broad variety;

3. Sauces and Inclusions: Liquid or solid ingredients which are added to the finished product to give it extra flavour or an enhanced texture. Examples are variegati di frutta; ripples, crunched nuts, chocolate pieces, etc.

Output Products

4. Base: This is the first Output Product in the Classic Method (see below) and consists of a mixture containing only Base Ingredients, carefully balanced to yield the desired consistency and mouthfeel;

5. Mix: This is the final flavoured liquid mixture, obtained by combining either a Base or a number of base ingredients with flavourings.

6. Cream: This is the output of the freezing process, in a semi-solid state, and containing all target characteristics of consistency, mouthfeel, visuals and flavour.

Processes

7. Recipe Development: The careful dosage of the ingredients according to their functional and organoleptic characteristics. The act of calculating the dosages to achieve the desired outcome is called balancing (bilanciamento in Italian) and can be done manually, using a spreadsheet, or via dedicated software;

8. Pasteurisation: The process of heating foods to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. This is normally a requirement when handling high risk foods (i.e. dairy and eggs) to kill microbes, and is necessary to activate certain stabilisers. Parameters are usually: 65ºC for 30' (low pasteurisation); 72ºC for 5' (mid pasteurisation); 85ºC for 5" (high pasteurisation). Called Hot Process, as opposed to Cold Process when it is not required (i.e. Sorbetto or Vegan).

9. Mixing: The process of combining the Base (or base ingredients) with the flavourings to produce the Mix, using an immersion blender, cup blender, or manual whisk.

10. Ageing: Allowing the Base or Mix to rest for a few hours in order for chemical processes to consolidate. Minimum recommended ageing time is 4h, ideally 12h, but never more than 72h. It can be done in the pasteuriser tank, using dedicated ageing vats, or in a fridge in sealed containers.

11. Freezing: The aged mix is finally frozen while being agitated to incorporate air (called Overrun). The process can be done manually, using a Batch Freezer (an artisanal machine) or a Continuous Freezer (an industrial machine).

12. Hardening: The Gelato coming out of a Batch Freezer is not at serving temperature yet so needs to be further cooled before serving. Ideally this will be done using a Blast Freezer to avoid the loss of quality caused by slow changes in temperature.

13. Serving: Gelato is served at the relatively high temperature range of -10º to -14ºC. This is different from the temperature range of domestic and industrial freezers (-18º to -24ºC). The main benefits of the higher temperature is that tastebuds can enjoy more flavour and the cream is softer, being easily served using a spade instead of a scooper.

Workflows

15. Classic Method: Large batches of Base are pasteurised and aged at once, with flavourings mixed on demand with minor rebalancing to produce Mixes for batch freezing. It is the fastest workflow, for scenarios of high volume output.

16. Direct Method: Each flavour is produced from scratch by mixing Base ingredients with Flavourings in carefully balanced dosages. It yields the most accurate balancing (and therefore theoretically better results) but is time consuming. Normally used in highly artisan, small production scenarios.

A presto!!

* Note: this story is part of a series of articles comprising an introduction to Gelato-making. You can access the full series here:

An Introduction to Gelato-making

On what the different types of Gelato are, and how to tell them apart.

Introduction

In the first article in this series we discussed what we mean by Gelato. We defined it as being ice cream done the Italian way, and introduced the concept of the four cardinal virtues — so long as a cream abides by them, I will happily call it Gelato (with a capital G), my point being that I subscribe to the Italian approach to making ice cream and its strict requirements.

However, the article might have left the impression that any cream done the Italian way and abiding by the rule of the four cardinal virtues will be called gelato, which is kinda right, but in a way an oversimplification.

Because, you see, like all great things in life, there is an incredible amount of diversity going on under that umbrella. For example what if you come across a cream doesn’t contain dairy? Or fat at all? Or any products of animal origin? Is it still a Gelato? And what about other Italian frozen specialties. Are they Gelato as well?

These are all very valid questions.

This article will provide answers and clearly define a number of terms, setting the foundation that we will use throughout our Gelato-making journey.

Read on!

In Diversity Veritas

They say diversity is the spice of life and the world of Gelato wouldn’t be the same without it. Strictly speaking, Gelato would be something made with milk, sugars and flavours in a particular way in order to produce the experience we described in the article mentioned above.

But being a product with a long and rich history of development across a wide geographical area, limiting the definition to just that would be a bit, well… limiting.

In fact, if you are here reading this article, the odds are that you already heard of Sorbets, Soft Serves and Granitas, just to name a few of the products that come up when the subject is gelato.

Are they Gelato?

To answer that let's take a step back and think of it through the lens of an analogy.

Let’s take burgers. Strictly speaking, a burger is composed of a beef patty, a bread roll sliced in two, some lettuce and tomatoes, with the occasional addition of bacon or cheese. However we also call burgers similar meals in which the patty is made with chicken, or lamb, or vegetables, and include all sorts of add-ons (think eggs, pineapple, avocados, etc).

Calling them all burgers makes sense because they are all very similar, but it is important to make a distinction, somehow, because certain people have strict dietary frameworks (think vegans and hindus) and may need to avoid certain incarnations. In the world of burgers, an appendix is added to make a clear distinction (i.e. “vegan burger”, “chicken burger”). Technically flawed but perfectly acceptable for practical purposes.

A similar issue arises in the world of Gelato, except that instead of adding an appendix (i.e. milk-free) Italians, in their infinite creativity, gave some of the variations new names while allowing the word gelato to also be a catch-all, referring to a bunch of frozen desserts done the Italian way.

I know it is starting to sound complicated, so let's get on with the facts and you will understand it in a snap.

First thing we will do is list the terms and explain their characteristics. As we do that, a few patterns will become obvious and we will use them as the base to build a system that will allow us to assess what variety of Gelato a recipe falls into without even thinking about it.

Let’s have a closer look!

First Things First: The Two Main Groups

If we stick to the four cardinal virtues of Consistency, Mouthfeel, Visuals and Flavour, we can divide frozen creams done the Italian into two broad groups:

#1. Gelato [juh-lah-toh] ¹
In a more restricted meaning, Gelato is the frozen cream done the Italian way using a milk base to which the flavouring is added. Most of the time it is obtained by combining milk and cream (usually at a ratio between 8:1 and 5:1), but several variations are possible: only milk, milk and butter, reconstituted milk, etc.

The key fact is that the overall organoleptic experience (the way our senses interpret a food) is determined by those of milk, resulting in a product that is homogeneous, creamy and silky (remember, milk is a colloidal mixture rich in fat and proteins).

So, strictly speaking, we can define Gelati (see footnotes) as Italian ice cream made with a milk base.

#2. Sorbetto [sohr-bet-oh] ²
Known in English as Sorbet, we could define it simply as water based Gelato, in other words, Italian ice cream made without the addition of milk and cream.

The absence of milk has two major effects: 1) on the structure — we lose all the key structure-enhancing ingredients supplied by milk (i.e. fat and proteins), ending up with a coarser mouthfeel; and 2) on the flavour — without the milk mask, we can experience the full flavour of the main ingredient, be it fruit, nut or chocolate.

As a result, Sorbetti are renown for being more intense in flavour while having a coarser, icier texture.

The good news is, there are techniques to enhance the structure and mouthfeel. The bad news is that sometimes these include ingredients like egg whites or whey powder, so it is important to highlight that, although being by definition free from added fat (except that of the flavouring, of course), Sorbetti are not necessarily free of ingredients of animal origin.

Sub-groups

The distinction between milk-based and water-based is a fundamental starting point, but it doesn't cover it all. As with everything Italian, there are slight variations that don't fall strictly within those groups and, although not as common, are worthy of mentioning:

#3. Crema [crey-mah]
A Custard Gelato. In some parts of Italy, when egg yolks are added to the cream, it will be called a Crema ³. In fact, many parlours that offer such specialty Gelati call themselves "Cremeria" instead of the usual Gelateria ⁴ (Bologna being notoriously the place with the highest concentration of them that in Italy ⁵).

A Crema will usually have a softer and stickier structure, and an incredibly soft mouthfeel, resulting from the emulsifying action of the egg yolk. They also have a peculiar flavour, which is much appreciated by some (myself included), but is not everyone's cup of tea.

Worthy of notice is the fact that Creme will usually be higher in fat than regular Gelati, the extra push coming from the fat in the egg yolks.

#4. Vegan Gelato [vee-gan juh-lah-toh]
As we saw above, although Sorbetti are water-based, they may include products of animal origin. Also, because there is no milk and usually nothing to replace milk's functional components, they can sometimes be coarser and icier than we would wish.

This means some Sorbetti might not be suitable for vegans and, usually, will fall a bit short in the cardinal virtue requirements of consistency and mouthfeel.

Enter Vegan Gelato — by carefully blending ingredients of plant origin that replace milk's functional components (again, fat and proteins), the expert Gelatiere will achieve a cream that is not only 100% vegan friendly, but also has a consistency and a mouthfeel that resemble that of a regular milk-based Gelato much more closely than a Sorbetto.

#5. Gelato Soft [juh-lah-toh soft]
Known in English as Soft-serve, “Mr. Whippy”, or “Soft Whip” among others, for practical purposes we could call this type of ice cream a Gelato, as it leans towards the four cardinal virtues. However, there are important differences: the consistency is slightly different (softer) than artisanal Gelato; it is produced at the moment of serving, in special machines; and the formulation is slightly different to make this possible.

The main characteristic of Gelato Soft is its spiral swirly shape, resulting from the nozzle through which it is served. Flavour choice is usually very limited because: a) each dispensing machine will have a maximum of two production circuits and three nozzles (two individual flavours plus one mixed); and b) it cannot take inclusions (i.e. fruit pieces or nut crunch) as these would block the tubes in the production circuit.

The most common version by far is milk-based, which will have a fat content similar to regular Gelato. However I am told water-based versions can also be found and are equally delicious. So we may want to call them Gelato Soft and Sorbetto Soft respectively, to avoid confusion :)

Other Italian Ices

The five groups above probably cover 99.0% of variations to Gelato that you will find when you are out and about indulging yourself in the Italian dessert of the Gods. But Italy being Italy, they don't exhaust the list of all frozen desserts in existence.

I won't even try to list all other variations here, but below is a short list with some of the more popular ones:

#6. Granita [gruh-nee-tah]
This is a frozen dessert that originated in Sicily (and for that reason also known as Granita Siciliana), but these days is available all over Italy. It looks and feels like slush, having a coarse, icy texture, marked by visible ice crystals, which is achieved through a specific production method that is rather different from Gelato.

The aim is to create a product that is coarse not creamy, doesn't incorporate air, and feels colder in the mouth. In other words, the exact opposite of what we are looking for in a Gelato!

Most often it is water-based, but curiously, there are recipes made with milk. The most common flavours are fruits, coffee and almonds.

#7. Semifreddo [sem-ee-freh-doh]
Semifreddi could be called a variation of Gelato. Essentially they: are based on milk and cream (which will usually be whipped); will always include eggs (sometimes only the whipped whites, sometimes only the yolks, sometimes both); contain more solids than Gelato (50–55% versus 35–40%); and are stored and served at lower temperatures (-18º to -20ºC) so are more solid when eaten.

The lower temperatures also allow for shaping the final product and setting sophisticated decorations before exposing it for sale. Layering is common but not necessary, and glazing is becoming increasing popular. They can be served as individual portions or larger cake-size pieces.

#8. Spumone [spoo-mow-ney]
This is actually a variation of Gelato, meaning simply the layering of different Gelato flavours in a block of varying shapes, and adding inclusions between the layers.

The classic 'Neapolitan' flavour is in fact a version of Spumone, and originally consisted of one layer of Pistacchio, one of Cherry and one of Chocolate, with candied cherry pieces, pistacchio crumbs and/or chocolate shavings in between them. These were later changed to the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours we are used to today.

Visualising the Keys

Although it all sounds utterly delicious, I can imagine that all the information above might have got you a bit confused. It is a lot to take in, particularly if you were not familiar with the subject.

You will be pleased to hear then, that in most of our articles we will almost exclusively refer to the five main types only: Gelato, Sorbetto, Crema, Vegan Gelato and Gelato Soft.

And in order to make it easier to tell them apart, I created a little visualisation chart that expresses each type with regards to eight key factors, five of which relate to content (water, milk, cream, eggs, fat) and three to structure (fineness, silkiness, hardness): ⁶

Notice how Creme are the most complete of them, with the structure most in line with the four cardinal virtues, while Sorbetti are the least. We could argue that the broader the spread, the more complex the product and the richer the experience it yields.

Wrapping Up

So there you go, you now have an overview of the main types of Gelato, plus a good understanding of the main variations in terms of ingredients and structure among them.

In a nutshell:

1. Gelato is the quintessential ice cream done the Italian way, made with milk and cream and displaying characteristics that constitute the benchmark for the four cardinal virtues;
2. Crema is the rich cousin of Gelato, incorporating egg yolks for an extra smooth and elastic structure. It has a characteristic flavour, and a very fine mouthfeel.
3. Sorbetto is the water-based cousin of Gelato. Containing no dairy and no added fat, its structure is not as smooth and fine as the latter, although there are techniques available to mitigate this. Sometimes it can include ingredients of animal origin;
4. Vegan Gelato is also water-based, but special ingredients of plant origin are added (i.e. fat, fibre and proteins) to achieve an extra smooth structure that closely resembles that of milk-based Gelato. Vegan Gelati should never include products of animal origin;
5. Gelato Soft is a type of Gelato that is milk-based, churned on demand, served in a swirly shape and slightly softer and less dense than regular milk Gelato.

A presto!!

*Footnotes:
(1) Italian singular form Gelato, plural Gelati [juh-lah-tee]. It being an Italian word, I will stick to the Italian declinations for plurals in all my articles.

(2) Italian singular form Sorbetto, plural Sorbetti [sawr-bet-tee]. Like with Gelato and Gelati, it being an Italian word, I will stick to the Italian declinations for plurals in all my articles.

(3) Italian singular form Crema, plural Creme [cray-mee]. As above, it being an Italian word, I will stick to the Italian declinations for plurals in all my articles.

(4) Italian singular form Gelateria [juh-lah-tuh-ree-ah], plural Gelaterie [juh-lah-tuh-ree-ey]. A Gelato shop or parlour. As above, it being an Italian word, I will stick to the Italian declinations for plurals in all my articles.

(5) My favourite being: Cremeria Funivia; Cremeria Scirocco; Cremeria Mascarella.

(6) To avoid doubts, this classification system is my own creation, for my own practical applications only, and does not pretend to be an authoritative treaty on assessing to which of the different types of Italian ice creams a recipe fits :)

*Note: this story is part of a series of articles comprising an introduction to Gelato-making. You can access the full series here:

An Introduction to Gelato-making

Introduction

We now know that Gelato is ice cream done the Italian way, and what it takes for anything to be called Gelato with a capital G — i.e. the four cardinal virtues of Consistency, Mouthfeel, Visuals and Flavour.

But apart from being utterly delicious and gorgeous, gelato is a very complex thing. It may not seem so on the surface, but there is a lot going on ‘under the lid’ — even the plainest flavour is a combination of several substances interacting with each other, bonded together through different means, and cohabiting in different physical states.

In order to achieve predictable (in other words consistently delicious) results, we have to know what goes on inside Gelato. Of course you could just follow recipes and still make great creams. But if you want to go one step further and come up with your own creations, you will give yourself a great head-start if you understand these interactions.

This article will get you initiated in just that.

Read on!

Breaking Down

One of the great learnings from doing even the most elemental science is that it is possible to understand most things in the world a little better by breaking them down into parts (thankfully my two year-old didn't get to that stage yet!)

So in order to figure out how it is that Italians achieve the four cardinal virtues through artisan means, we could do well to have a closer look at a Gelato's constituent parts.

One cool thing about breaking things apart is that we can do it from different perspectives.

Say you have a toy car like my two year-old's fledging Lightning McQueen model. You can say it has four wheels, one engine, four exhausts, two (fake) head-lights, two rear-lights, etc. — and so break it down by its constituent mechanical parts.

But you could also say that it has a red bonnet, four black tyres, two yellow lightening bolts on the sides, etc. — now breaking it down by colours.

We will do the same with Gelato and, in this article, will break it down based on:

1. Physical states
2. Structure
3. Ingredient groups

Hopefully, at the end of the article we will have a solid overview of what goes on under the hood and in the paddock, in order to come up with our own take on the dessert of the Gods.

Let's get started!

The Physical States

When you look at a Gelato you think of it as a cream: something cold, foamy — neither solid nor liquid — and, well, irresistible. The cold and delicious parts are correct, the neither solid nor liquid not so much.

Because you see, Gelato is such an amazing product that it actually contains elements in the three physical states that we can experience in our daily life (i.e. solid, liquid, and gas) at the same time.

I will dig a little deeper into the nuts and bolts of how this works in a future article. For now though, all I want is that you keep in mind that a Gelato will always contain the following:

1. Water: It may sound counter-intuitive, but your Gelato will always contain liquid water, which works as the 'gel' binding everything else together. By the way, water is the most abundant element in a Gelato, usually ranging between 60 and 70% of the total weight.
2. Air: You may not notice it, but there is a lot of air in your Gelato too — in fact anything between 25 and 40% of it. It is the cushion that will help create that soft, pliable consistency we all crave for;
3. Solids: Everything else in a Gelato will be solids. They are the elements that will give its distinctive characteristics (flavour, aroma, colour and nutrients). Notice however, that some of the water in your Gelato will also be frozen solid.

It goes without saying, but I would like to remind you anyway, that solids can't freeze (since freezing means going from a liquid state to a solid one). This is an important thing to take note because it will have implications for when we are making our Gelato.

You might also be wondering how can it be that a Gelato contains both liquid and frozen water. I explain how this is possible in this article if you are curious, but essentially, not all water freezes at once in a complex system. And it is precisely due to the tension between frozen and liquid water (i.e. more frozen water = harder consistency) plus the cushioning from the air bubbles that the part-frozen creamy structure of a Gelato is achieved.

If it's still not clear, just have a look at the image above. It should help visualise how the elements are distributed in a mix. Finding the goldilocks balance between them while developing our recipe is one of the steps to achieve that legendary consistency that we want.

Understood? Great, we can now come to our first conclusion:

Gelato is born from the interplay between Air, Water and Solids. Take one of them out and there can be no Gelato.

Let's move on!

Structure

I mentioned above that solids dispersed in water are what gives our Gelato its distinctive characteristics. But do all solids work the same? The answer, as you can imagine, is no. Different solids will interact with water in different ways, each producing a different result.

Understanding how these interactions take place is crucial to enable us to actively control their outcome. We could write a book on the topic (actually there are many of them), but for this introductory article we will stick to the basics:

Mixtures
When we dissolve a substance in another we are creating a mixture. Mixtures can be homogeneous and heterogeneous. In a homogeneous mixture you can't tell the substances apart and they behave as if they were one (think sugar in water). In a heterogeneous mixture you can, and they will usually separate if left alone (think oil in water).

Solutions
There is only one type of homogeneous mixture and it is called a solution. The key thing about solutions is that the different substances bind together and cannot be taken apart through mechanical means (i.e. filtering).

Colloids, Emulsions, Suspensions
As for heterogeneous mixtures, they come in different types, depending on the size and state of the particles. So when the particles in a mixture are really really tiny, so tiny that you can't tell them apart, and they won't separate spontaneously, you have a colloid (think of milk). If the mixture is made of two liquid substances which normally don’t mix together but are mixed in a way that they won't separate, you have an emulsion (think of mayonnaise). And if it is made of bigger particles which may settle and are visible by the naked eye, you have a suspension (think of muddy water).

Now, if you have been thinking about what I just said and what goes into a Gelato (milk, cream, sugar…) and what they are composed of (water, fat, proteins…) you are probably coming to the conclusion that a Gelato is in fact a mixture — right?

Well done!

But you probably also noticed that in a Gelato you have mixtures of water (from the milk) and sugar; water and fat; water and proteins. And these substances yield different types of mixtures — right?

Right!

Amazed? I got more…

Foams
Let's not forget that in the middle of all these mixtures we will also throw in air bubbles (remember, there is no Gelato without air, water and solids). And when you trap pockets (i.e. bubbles) of air into a liquid or solid, you get what we call a foam.

I don't know about you, but I find all this amazing. Think about it — what this all means is that:

A Gelato is, at the same time, the four types of chemical mixtures — solution, colloid, emulsion and suspension — and also a foam.

Utterly pleasant on the outside (to the eye, the nose, and the palate), yet wildly complex within. How is that for a fantastic product?!

Now you tell me what is not to love in Gelato :)

Grouping Solid Ingredients

Now that we have an overview of what happens at a macro level within a Gelato, it’s time to have a closer look at the solids in a recipe.

Comprising everything in a cream that is neither air nor liquid water, the solids in a recipe are what effectively allows us to create different flavours, with their unique textures, colours and aromas.

Any ingredient that is not water or air will contain solids, and since Gelato is a food (an utterly delicious one at that, but still food), we will group the solids in a recipe in a way similar to nutritionists.

Unlike nutritionists though, we will focus on the function each of these group performs in our Gelato, instead of their nutritional value. In broad lines, every single ingredient that we add to our recipe will be broken down into the following groups:

1. Sugars: These are carbohydrates of the mono and disaccharide type, meaning they are composed of either one or two carbohydrate molecules bound together. There are several types of sugar, each with their individual characteristics. The one we normally refer to as table sugar is actually called Sucrose and is a disaccharide (i.e. it contains two carbohydrate molecules joined together due to condensation reaction). Other types are Fructose (a monosaccharide found in fruit) and Lactose (a disaccharide found in milk).

Sugars are crucial for Gelato-making, because they perform a number of functions. First and foremost they confer sweetness, but that’s not all. They are also responsible for lowering the freezing point of water and, by interacting with water molecules, helping produce a smoother texture.

2. Fats: These are complex molecules present in foods and can be found in ingredients of animal or vegetal origin (i.e. milk, cream, nuts, chocolate). In terms of nutrition, they provide energy (being the nutrients with the highest caloric index), but in a Gelato they do much more: because of their characteristics, fats are great carriers for other nutrients, which attach to them; they are responsible for creating the perception of creaminess; and they help enhance the perception of flavour in the mouth.

So not as crucial as sugars but a really nice add-on.

3. Proteins: The third type of so-called macro nutrient, proteins are the building blocks of cells. Being also complex molecules, they have a special characteristic — they tend to fold under certain circumstances. This comes in very handy for Gelato-making, because it makes them interact with fat globules, ice crystals and air bubbles in a way that helps creating a smoother texture which makes our tongues and palates really happy.

Like fats, not as crucial as sugars, but damn you want to have them in your Gelato!

4. Other solids: everything that is not sugar, fat, or protein, for Gelato-making purposes is classed as other solids. These can be: complex carbohydrates (i.e. polyols, alcohols, starches, fibre); minerals; salts; vitamins; you name it. Because it is a large group, their functions are varied. Salts make things salty but also lowers the frezing point of water; starches and fibres provide bulk, elasticity and volume; polyols provide sweetness and lower the freezing point of water.

Each of them is thus considered according to their function when working on the recipe.

But there is one particular type of other solids that is worth looking into in a little more detail. We will discuss them deep and wide in a future article, but they are so important for Gelato-making that we will ceremoniously introduce them now: Stabilisers. These are complex carbohydrate chains that interact with water molecules in a way that, well, stabilises a mixture. A classic example is corn starch: add it to water, heat it, and voilà, you have a tasteless, neutral coloured, thick homogeneous cream.

This cream (which happens to be a colloid) is the result of the stabiliser behaving a bit like a mesh holding other molecules into place, which brings great improvements in terms of consistency, melting and mouthfeel.

In sum, other solids are what makes Gelato delicious. Take them out and you have no flavours, no aromas, no volume and a pretty flat texture — and I don’t know about you but for me, nothing really worthy of tasting :)

So there you go, now you have an idea of what we mean by solids in a recipe, and how they allow us to assess how an ingredient will affect the final product.

As an example, take milk. White and homogeneous to the naked eye, it is actually a mixture containing fat, sugar (lactose), proteins and mineral salts diluted or suspended in water, at a specific proportion.

As the saying goes,

There is more to solids than meets the eye…

Connecting the Dots

At this stage you might be satisfied that you learned some interesting stuff but asking “how will all this help me with Gelato-making?”

And that is a very good question, with a very straight-forward answer:

In order to achieve the four cardinal Gelato virtues of Consistency, Mouthfeel, Visuals and Flavour, we will have to get the perfect balance of the elements (air, water and solids); combine our ingredients in a complex yet harmonious mixture that is at once a solution, a colloid, an emulsion and a suspension; and make sure that we have the right proportions of different solids.

I hope you get the picture. In an upcoming post in this series we will look into the effect each of them has in our Gelato, but for now, it is enough that you are aware of them.

Well done so far!

Wrapping Up

So there you go, we now know that underneath its veneer of simplicity, Gelato is an incredibly complex product that:

1. Is composed of the three physical states: air, liquid water, and solids.
2. Incorporates simultaneously the four types of chemical mixtures — solution, colloid, emulsion and suspension — and is also a foam.
3. Contains solids that provide its taste, aroma and colour. These are grouped for practical purposes according to their function as: sugars, fats, proteins, and other solids.
4. When carefully balanced so that the proportion between the different physical states, the different mixtures and the different solids groups is just right, can be produced in a consistent, predictable manner using a wide range of ingredients.

A presto!!

*Note: this story is part of a series of articles comprising an introduction to Gelato-making. You can access the full series here:

An Introduction to Gelato-making

You know it is the Italian dessert of the Gods. But have you ever wondered what makes Gelato special, or how it is made?
This series will give you answers.

Read on!

Before We Start

Series are a handy way Medium offers to organise articles for reading on the go. They are primarily designed for a mobile screen but work well on desktop too:

1. Tap / click on the right side of the card to move forward, or on the left to move back;
2. Once you found the article you want, tap / click its image or the 'Read Article' link to open it.
3. If you want to know when new articles are published, just tick the notifications button.

And of course, if you really like the series, you can always leave a few claps to show your appreciation :)

Ready? Let’s get started!!

1. So, What Is Gelato?

You’ve heard the name, maybe you have tried it, and perhaps even made it yourself. But do you know what it is?

2. A Closer Look

Lifting the Lid — Do You Know What Goes on Inside a Gelato? Much more than you probably expected!

3. Variations on a Theme

On what the different types of Gelato are, how they are called, and how to tell them apart.

4. How Is Gelato Made?

Understanding the materials and steps involved in making the Italian dessert of the Gods — at home or in the lab.

Upcoming…

5. Recipe Balancing

Understanding how to determine dosages and what parameters to look at when developing a Gelato recipe.

Stay tuned!

Introduction

In the first part of this article we introduced the idea that PAC alone cannot be an indicator of a cream's hardness, because there are other factors involved.

We demonstrated this by showing how different recipes with the same PAC will freeze at different temperatures, so will have different hardness at any given temperature. We introduced the concepts of normalised PAC (PACn) which allows us to determine a recipe's freezing point (FP) and argued that the freezing point of a recipe is a much more reliable indicator since it takes into account the amount of water in the recipe.

In this final part we will extract two new parameters from the freezing point and explain why we think one of them is the best indicator of hardness for practical purposes.

Read on!

Beyond Freezing Point

Now that we have agreed that the freezing point (FP) of a recipe provides much more useful information than its PAC alone, it is time to look beyond it.

As we discussed earlier, the amount of ice in a cream is directly linked with its hardness in the cabinet: as the temperature drops below the freezing point, more water gets frozen so the cream feels harder; conversely, increase the temperature and you will have less ice and more liquid water, so the cream will feel softer.

Another way of putting it is that the play between the frozen and unfrozen water in a cream will determine its hardness: in one extreme, above its freezing point, the cream is liquid (i.e. very soft) because there is no ice in it; on the other, the temperature is too low and there is only ice, so we have a solid (i.e. very very hard) block.

Our sweet spot will be somewhere in between, so we have two tasks at hand in order to find it:

1. Find out how much ice a recipe will have formed at a given temperature, based on a set of parameters;
2. Find out which balance between frozen and liquid water delivers the hardness we want.

Let's look into it!

Step 1 — Ice Fraction
Luckily, some very clever guys have been hard at work to figure out #1. They created an index to represent this and called it ice fraction. Essentially it expresses the weight of the ice in a solution at a given temperature, based on its freezing point and water content.

Let's have a look at how to calculate it.

We will need to know two parameters, and determine a third:

1. The amount of water in the recipe (100-TS)
2. The recipe's freezing point (FP)
3. The cabinet's serving temperature (Ts)

The first two we already know how to calculate and since the third is our own choice, we are ready to go — all we need is a formula:

Where:

I know it looks terribly complicated, but don't worry, the formula is here for informative purposes only. I promise you won't need to use it unless you really really want, as I have setup a little spreadsheet that does all the calculations (it will be available at the end of the article once we have covered all the topics I want us to).

Anyway, getting back to the ice fraction calculation, you may be asking:

All this is very well, but what do we do with it?

And it is a very good question! I mean, it is clear that a cream with more frozen water in it will feel harder, but how to find how much is hard enough and how much is not?

To answer this, let's have a closer look at what we have found so far.

The ice fraction tells us how much of the recipe's weight is frozen water. (i.e. an ice fraction of 0.5 at a given temperature means that at that temperature, 500gr of every kg of the recipe will be ice). However, the total weight of the recipe includes all its solids, which, as you can imagine, will remain solid irrespective of the serving temperature. So their effect on hardness will not vary, which means that ice fraction will not work as an indicator of hardness at a given temperature.

Which brings us to…

Step 2 — Percentage of Water Frozen
Look at the image above and imagine two scenarios: one where there are very few ice blocks, and another where the surface is completely covered. Which one do you think would be safer (i.e. more solid) for you to walk on?

This is the principle behind how we assess hardness: we will look into how much ice vs. water our recipe will have at the serving temperature.

In order to do this, we correlate the ice and water fractions of the recipe and express them as a ratio, which we call the percentage of water frozen (%WF).
It is calculated as follows:

Both variables were present in the previous calculation, se we now have an easy way to find out how much of the water in a recipe will be frozen at the serving temperature.

Almost there…

Because I can see you thinking that "all this is very well and makes sense, but how do I know what %Wf will yield the consistency I am looking for?!"

And it is another very good question!

Based on experience, that great Gelato consistency we are all fond of is achieved when between 75 — 80% of its water is frozen according to the formula above. Closer to 75% it will have a rather soft (Bologna-style) consistency, while closer to 80% it will be a rather firm bundle.

And that completes our lucubrations. We can now confidently state that:

"In order to have a Gelato at an appropriate serving consistency we shall balance our recipe so that it yields a %Wf value between 75–80 at our chosen serving temperature."

Bravissimo!!

Now that we have all the theory and formulas covered, let's have a look at some examples.

The example above displays pretty standard parameters for a classic flavoured Gelato recipe: Total Solids at 40%, PAC 24 and 8.5% MSNF. Two serving temperatures of -10 and -14ºC were chosen as this is the usual recommended range for the serving of traditional Gelato, to give us an idea of how they affect the ice concentration in the cream.

So the example above would probably feel a bit too hard at -14ºC (as it is above 80%Wf) and pretty ok at -10ºC (as it is within 75–80). You also might have noticed that it could be served at an even warmer temperature — in my tests it behaved well up to -9ºC at which it yielded 76%Wf.

Notice something else: how these parameters yield an FP of -2.93ºC.

This is pretty good, as the goldilocks freezing point range is usually considered to be between -2.75 and -3ºC for a serving temperature between -10º and -14ºC.

So we are starting to get somewhere, methinks. We went from a blanket recommendation based on the PAC of a recipe without any regard for other parameters that will have a big impact on hardness (i.e. the proportion between solids and water); to a more holistic approach where we take into account not only PAC, but also Total Solids and serving temperature.

Along the way we uncovered two parameters that will be great guides in determining the hardness of our cream in the cabinet: the Mix's Freezing Point (FP) and Percentage of Water Frozen (%Wf).

Sounds great!!

Before we conclude though, let's have a look at a few other examples to check how the above holds up:

In the example above we are comparing our first Gelato recipe with a Sorbetto. The main differences between them are in Total Solids and PAC. Notice how, as a consequence, virtually all parameters turn out different and yet, the percentage %Wf of both is almost identical.

Notice also how if you calculate PAC ÷ 2 for the first (a Gelato), and PAC ÷ 2.5 for the second (a Sorbetto), you will come to the same RST (Recommended Serving Temperature) of -12ºC.

Now you know how they came out with these magical denominators!! :)

Finally, notice how at this temperature both mixes yield a %Wf of 80.

So, again, %Wf is the indicator we want to focus on to assess the hardness of our Gelato or Sorbetto at a given serving temperature. If you like your Gelato to be served a little firmer you now know what is your ideal %Wf (i.e. 80). If you like it a bit softer, it will be less than that, but not below 75.

And if you are curious, my personal preference is around 77–78…

High five to you — job done!!

Wrapping Up

So there you have it. We went from estimating hardness based on cumbersome PAC rules that don't take into account key factors about our Gelati or Sorbetti, to a consistent system that gives us reliable figures based on simple calculations.

In a nutshell:

1. PAC is a very limited tool to assess the hardness of a cream at serving temperature. It doesn't take into account the balance between total solids and the amount of water in a recipe;
2. The Freezing Point (FP) is a much more appropriate indicator, because it relates the antifreezing potential of the recipe's PAC with the amount of water available. The usual recommended range for Gelato and Sorbetto is between -2.75º and -3.0ºC, for the serving temperature range between -10º and -14ºC.
3. By relating the recipe's freezing point with the serving temperature we can calculate the percentage of water frozen (%Wf), which is the de facto indicator of hardness. The ideal range for Gelato and Sorbetto is between 75 (at the soft end), and 80 (at the harder).
4. If you click on the image below it will open a link to a Google Sheets spreadsheet that will calculate the freezing point and the %Wf based on TS, PAC and serving temperature.

And that concludes this two part series.

A presto!!

p.s. — Before we part ways on the topic of Hardness, a little Disclaimer:

Unfortunately, the reality is that there are many more factors that will have an influence on the hardness of a Gelato or Sorbetto in the cabinet. Things like the types of solids present in the ingredients (i.e. chocolate and nuts solids tend to get harder when frozen); the amount of overrun; and more. This means that you may come across a specific recipe or flavour that doesn't yield results 100% in line with the above, particularly if you like to experiment with unorthodox flavours.

The way to avoid this would be to take into account all factors that might influence a cream's Hardness, but this would be very complicated and highly impractical.

That's why I chose to stick with this method in spite of its limitations. It is still a great step forward (actually two!) compared to good old PAC, and yields pretty reliable results in most cases.

I hope you will agree, but let me know your thoughts in a comment if not :)

Introduction

The easiest and most complete way to answer this question is:

“Gelato is ice cream done the Italian way”

Because everything there is to be said and known about Gelato is encapsulated in that statement. Unfortunately though, as great and all-encompassing as it is, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and begs for a bit of explaining.

So in this article I will do just that — clarify what I mean by the above and, in the process, debunk some myths and misunderstandings about Italy's favourite dessert that litter the media left right and centre.

Read on!

Putting the Record Straight

With Gelato becoming increasingly popular and kind of a buzzword in all sorts of media, it is only natural that more and more people start writing about it. I personally think this is great — the more people writing about it, the more people will know about and want to enjoy it, which will entice more people to make it, which should help solve one of the greatest problems currently facing humankind: the fact that it is so hard to find proper Gelato outside of Italy.

Everybody wins!… right?

Well, maybe not so fast. You see, unfortunately many an "expert" writing about Gelato don't seem to really know what they are talking about, and more often than not write / say unhelpful things.

To add insult to injury, most of the people who really know what Gelato is are either too busy making it for their loyal customers to have the time to write about it, or do write great things about the dessert of the gods but do so in Italian.

The consequence of this is that there is a lot of misinformation around on what Gelato really is, which leads to many unscrupulous vendors out there calling the stuff that they sell Gelato when it totally is not.

So I thought that a good start for my humble attempt at sharing some Gelato wisdom would be to first clarify what Gelato IS NOT.

Let's have a look.

What Gelato Is Not

A google search on the question ‘what is the difference between gelato and ice cream?’ yields a stunning 109,000,000 results. That’s more than one hundred million (!), so definitely there are a lot of people out there writing about Gelato.

One would imagine that with so much material around, there would be a lot of variety, but unfortunately the opposite is the case: most articles I have read repeat three or four mantras, over and over again.

Let's have a closer look at them and see if they survive scrutiny.

Myth #1: Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream.

This is one of the most common answers. But is it true? A quick check on the dictionary seems to confirm so — look at what the Collins Italian-English dictionary has to say:

But wait, dictionaries are renown for oversimplifying concepts, so let’s have a look at some slightly more detailed definitions.

This is a loose translation of the Italian Wikipedia's definition of Gelato:

“Gelato is a type of food which is obtained by combining certain ingredients [usually milk, sugar and a flavouring] and bringing the resulting mixture to a solid or semi-solid foamy state through its simultaneous freezing and agitation, which results in the incorporation of air.”

And this is what the English Wikipedia has to say about ice cream:

“Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a dessert. It is usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, often combined with flavors and sweetened with sugar. The mixture is stirred to incorporate air and cooled below the freezing point of water. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam.”

And they seem to confirm the myth, right? The text for Gelato is almost word for word the same as that for ice cream.

However…

The problem with this argument is that it tries to simplify something that is by nature complex. Just think about it for a minute — a Ferrari Enzo might be made out of metal, have a petrol engine and four wheels, but would you say that it is the same thing as a Tata Nano? I mean, as cars they may share generalities, but there is a world of a difference between them!

The same is the case for Gelato and ice cream. Yes, they are milk based desserts, yes they are sold frozen, and yes you can call my Gelato an ice cream (or whichever word you use for ice cream in your language), but you only have to see and try a proper Gelato to realise that the experience of it is indeed very different than that of general ice cream.

And in case you are still not convinced, have a look at the images below. Can you really say the thing on the right is the same as the thing on the left?

I can see you resolutely swinging your head sideways in negation, so I think we can now confidently say that Gelato is NOT just the Italian word for ice cream.

Great — Let's move on!

Myth #2: Gelato is ice cream with less air, less fat and served at a warmer temperature.

The number of infographics describing the above in numbers and images is mind boggling. To be honest, even I thought like this for some time. But as I learned more about Gelato, I started to realise how often this differentiation does not reflect the truth — although it may be sometimes the case, what makes Gelato different from generic ice cream is so much something else that I think it is time to put this myth to rest as well.

And we will do this but looking into a case study. Let's take a premium vanilla ice cream product and analyse its nutritional information:

The tub label claims to contain 460ml of ice cream and weight 332gr. This means it has about 38% air (known in technical jargon as "overrun"), which is around the same as most good quality Gelato. The fat is on the high end but not too much; some Italian Gelato traditions, like that of Bologna, also tend to have high fat content — not so much but not too far either. And the sugar content (if we consider lactose, as explained in this article) is also quite similar to that of proper Gelato, particularly those of a Southern Italian provenance.

So, this far… no real differences.

The last thing left to check then is the serving temperature. Gelato is usually served between -12º and -14ºC, while a domestic freezer is usually set to between -18º and -22ºC. To check how the ice cream will behave at a Gelato serving temperature we will have to use a simple trick — take the ice cream out of the freezer, remove the cover and keep it in the fridge for some time, so that it reaches the higher temperature range. Normally the temperature will drop at a rate of 1ºC every 5 minutes for a 1/2 lt tub in such conditions, so something around 40–45 minutes should do the trick.

[In case you are a bit of a nerd like me, you may want to get yourself a probe thermometer to make sure the cream is at the right temperature range]

Now go ahead and serve it. If you have tried a proper Gelato before, you will realise it feels very different.

So there you go — we demonstrated that an ice cream with similar fat, incorporated air and serving temperature as Gelato doesn't feel like Gelato.

So we can put this myth to rest as well.

Good!! We are making progress :)

Myth #3: Gelato is ice cream made using a specific recipe with specific ingredients.

I've read many books and articles claiming what the "authentic" Gelato recipe is. Some list milk (but no cream), egg yolks, sugar and carob flour. Others include cream but no egg yolks and corn starch instead of carob flour. Still others no cream, no egg yolks but indeed corn starch.

Which one is the real original?

The truth is — all and none. Let me explain.

One day I will write an article specifically dedicated to the history of Gelato, but for now I will just say that it didn't come about at once in a single location — instead it was developed in parallel over time and in different parts of Italy.

In Sicily it used to be made with milk, sugar and corn starch; across the straight in Naples (a city with a long and pioneering history of Gelato making) it had milk, eggs and corn starch; travel towards the richer lands further north and cream was incorporated but no corn starch.

So you see, the regional recipe would be dictated by the ingredients available in the surroundings. To complicate matters further, today's technology amplified this diversity a whole order of magnitude. If you are lucky enough to have a peek into the recipe book of a modern Gelatiere Italiano you will find not only all the above but also dextrose, glucose syrup, skimmed milk powder, plant fibres, and a whole lot more.

Yet, all of them were and are called Gelato, and they feel a certain special way when consumed.

So it can't really be the recipe or the ingredients, right?

Another myth put to rest!

What Sets Gelato Apart

Now that we have agreed that Gelato is neither a) the same as ice cream; b) a specific fat percentage / overrun / serving temperature; c) a specific recipe or set of ingredients; it is time to discuss what it really is.

The way I like to describe it is as an experience. If you have tried real Italian artisan Gelato, you know it feels very special. It is refreshing and creamy like an ice cream, but there is something quite unique about it.

And like any experience, it is tricky to describe, because words cannot replace the actual sensation. So to make it easier to understand how the experience of Gelato feels I tried to identify its key requirements.

For me they are:

Consistency: This is one of the key things that set Gelato apart. While most ice cream is relatively hard when served, only melting gradually into a creamy bundle once in your mouth, Gelato looks creamy and soft all along. If you are not sure what I'm talking about, just have a look at the image below an you will get what I mean — have you ever seen ice cream with this texture? So in order for a cream to deserve being called Gelato it will have to be: malleable, with the right density; light; and a little bit elastic.

Mouthfeel: This is the result of the consistency. I have heard people say after trying Gelato for the first time (including myself!) that it feels like a “frozen mousse”, a “fluffy cloud”, or a “playful ribbon”. Also that it doesn't feel so cold on the palate. So in order for a cream to deserve being called Gelato it will have to feel: soft; silky and light; fresh but not cold.

Visuals: More and more people come to agree that we experience food with at least three senses (taste, smell, and vision). Here Gelato also excels. On the one hand, its silky texture and viscous structure gives it a lush finish which instantly catches the eye. On the other, because it is made with real ingredients and not colourants or preservatives, colours are vivid but not shiny. So in order for a cream to deserve being called Gelato it will have to look: soft; silky and with a certain degree of viscosity; and have vibrant but natural colours.

Flavour: The last requirement for a cream to qualify as Gelato is flavour. It really tastes like what it claims to taste. There are several ways of getting the flavour of an ingredient, such as extracts, concentrates, etc., but nothing beats the flavour of the real ingredient. Fresh lemon juice; fresh berries; real nut, ground to a paste. Combine that with carefully balanced recipes that bring out the most of an ingredient's taste and aroma, and you have unbeatable flavour.

One (Two) More Things…

Before we wrap up, there are two other aspects to consider when evaluating if a cream can be called proper Gelato. I will discuss them in depth in a future article about what makes Gelato special, but I thought it would be handy to mention them in passing before closing this entry.

The first is artisanship. Gelato is essentially an artisan phenomenon in Italy. There are more than 19,000 (!!) artisanal parlours registered in the country, which produce their creams in-house, daily, in small batches, using artisanal machines requiring plenty of human intervention.

The second is freshness. Gelato is like bread, it tastes best while fresh. Store it in the frezer for long and it doesn't feel the same. That is why artisanal production in small batches is essential — you make it as it is consumed, so the customer always gets a fresh product.

So if, and only if, a cream fulfils the six strict requirements of consistency, mouthfeel, looks, flavour, artisanship and freshness; I will call it Gelato (with a capital G) — a product born out of Italian ingenuity and obsession with food perfection.

The specifics may vary — more fat, less fat; more air, less air; this ingredient or that ingredient — but it really doesn't matter, it will certainly not feel like ordinary ice cream, it will be:

“Ice cream done the Italian way”

Because you see, Italians are notorious for taking their food to extremes of inventiveness, rigour and savouriness, so when we say that anything is done “the Italian way”, you should not take it lightly.

Wrapping Up

So there you go, we can now agree that Gelato (with a capital G) is ice cream done the Italian way, which means that it:

1. Has a specific malleable and viscous consistency which can be handled and shaped straight out of the display freezer with a spade;
2. In the mouth feels light, silky and viscous, dense and flavoursome; fresh but not cold;
3. Has a silky sheen, and looks uncanningly creamy and malleable, with vivid but natural colours;
4. Has unbeatable flavour, the result of careful balancing and the use of high quality, natural ingredients; with no artificial flavours or colourants.
5. Is made by artisans, in small batches, fresh daily.

Miss any of those and you might as well just call it ice cream, Italian ice cream, or gelato (with a small g), I’m fine with that.

A presto!!

*Note: this story is part of a series of articles comprising an introduction to Gelato-making. You can access the full series here:

An Introduction to Gelato-making

Introduction

In this article we discussed what makes Gelato special and explained that two key factors are its consistency and mouthfeel. Unlike regular ice cream, Gelato has a fluffy, mousse-like consistency that is particularly pleasant on the palate. It also doesn't feel so cold in the mouth.

If you are anything like me (and most people that I know), you only have to look at the image above to oh- so-very-much want to have one. As we discussed in the article, the secret to this is the careful blend of ingredients to achieve the perfect balance of structure and texture, while allowing us to serve our creams at a higher temperature.

The goal is to achieve an equilibrium of parameters that places our gelato in the sweet spot between soft and hard, dry and moist, fluffy and dense. Because you cannot have great Gelato without getting the serving consistency right.

This article will discuss one of the key parameters involved in achieving this.

Read on!

Assessing Hardness

“Know the PAC of thy Gelato and thou shalt know how hard it will be in thy cabinet”

In this other article I discussed a widespread tool used to estimate hardness: the ubiquitous PAC (or AFP, or FPDF, or SE). The idea behind PAC is that, by balancing our recipe within certain ranges, we ensure that our Gelati or Sorbetti will be scoopable and at the sweet spot of consistency to delight our cherished patrons.

That's what almost everyone does, so, it got to be right… right?

Well, not so fast. You see, although knowing a recipe's PAC is fundamental to proper balancing, it is actually far from giving a realiable indication of the hardness (or scoopability) of a recipe. Let's have a closer look and you will understand why.

The Shortcomings of PAC, part I

To better understand the shortcomings of PAC, let's have a look at the recipes below. According to the widely accepted rule of thumb in the industry, they should all scoop similarly in a cabinet set at -12ºC, given their PAC ranges.

If you need a reminder from the PAC article, here it goes:

• For Gelati: PAC ÷ 2 = ideal serving temperature for scoopability. In this case ~24 ÷ 2 = 12 → -12ºC
• For Sorbetti: PAC ÷ 2.5 = ideal serving temperature for scoopability. In this case ~30 ÷ 2.5 = 12 → -12ºC

Therefore, according to the rule of thumb, all three creams should scoop reasonably similarly in the cabinet or display.

If you are a tinkerer, go ahead: batch them, keep them in the cabinet at -12ºC and try to scoop them for yourself — you will realise they don't. If you have experience with serving gelato, you will know already that a nut or chocolate cream with the same PAC as a fior di latte will be harder to scoop.

And if you don't tick either box, just trust me — they won't.

Next, did you notice something about the rule of thumb — the fact that there is a different denominator for Gelati than for Sorbetti? If PAC were an effective indicator of scoopability and serving temperature in and of itself, the denominator should be the same for both, right?

If you are asking that question, you are heading in the right direction.

The reason why the difference was introduced is that everyone noticed that with the same PAC and at the same temperature in the cabinet, Sorbetti were considerably harder than Gelati.

But why is that? Let's have a look into what is happening.

The Shortcomings of PAC, part II

One of the factors at play in the PAC paralax between Gelati and Sorbetti is the amount of water in the recipe. Under normal circumstances, water is the only thing that freezes in a mix, so the amount of frozen water in a cream is directly linked to how hard it is — remember, water is soft and ice is hard, so the balance between frozen and liquid water at a given temperature will determine where in the spectrum between liquid and rock solid your cream will be.

Usually Gelati will have 40% total solids (TS), so 60% water; Sorbetti on the other hand, will have 30% TS, so 70% water. And I guess it is easy to see that if we have more water in a recipe, more of the recipe will be liable to freezing, so it will feel harder at a given temperature.

Not so clear? Let's look at it in another way.

Remember that PAC is an indication of the potential of the ingredients to lower the freezing temperature of water? This means that, in a recipe with the same potential but more water, we will have less anti-freezing because the anti-freezing potential is stretched wider. Imagine that you have the equivalent of 240gr of sucrose (PAC 24 in 1,000gr of recipe) to anti-freeze 600gr or 700gr of water. On which one do you think it will be more effective?

The one with less water of course!

So I hope it becomes easy to see why, with the same PAC, a Sorbetto will feel harder than a Gelato at the same temperature — because it will have more frozen water.

And the only conclusion we can come to is that, on its own, PAC (or AFP or FPDF, or SE) cannot be a reliable indicator of a recipe's scoopability or serving temperature.

So… how do we fix that?

Calculating Frozen Water

“Know only the PAC of thy Gelato and thou shalt not know how hard it will be in thy cabinet”

There you go, this slightly rephrased motto is a bit more realistic. It is important to know the PAC of your recipe, but you won't know its scoopability or ideal serving temperature only with that figure.

So what else do we need to know?

The hint is in the section above, when we said that water is the only thing that can freeze in a mix. As it happens, not all water in a mix freezes at once; it is a gradual process, in which only a fraction percentage becomes solid at the freezing point, freezing more and more as the temperature drops further. As a result, there is a range of temperature in which not all water is frozen, so the hardness (and dryness) of the cream will vary.

Put it another way, the consistency of a mix at a given temperature will be largely determined by the amount of frozen water at that given temperature. Makes sense right? Ice is hard, so the more frozen water we have, the harder our Gelato or Sorbetto will be.

Less water frozen = softer cream

More water frozen = harder cream

Great! But… How do I know how much water is frozen in my recipe at a given temperature? And how much frozen water will yield a good consistency?

Well, it turns out that a really clever guy named Pickering spent a lot of time in 1891 figuring out how a sugar-water solution freezes as the temperature goes down, based on the solution concentration. Then another very clever chap named Leighton created some really handy tables in 1927. Armed with these tables and a little bit of Excel formulations we can calculate how much frozen water a recipe will have in a wide temperature range, and with a bit of experimentation, figure out how much frozen water yields our favourite consistency.

But before we get to the calculations, we have to know what parameters to include. We already discussed all of them, but lets just recap:

1. The first is the PAC of a recipe: since it indicates its potential to lower the freezing point of water, a higher PAC will result in less frozen water at a given temperature.

2. The second is the percentage of water: a recipe with more water will have a more stretched PAC, which will result in more frozen water at a given temperature. The percentage of water will be 100% - TS% so we need to know the Total Solids (TS) of the recipe.

3. Finally, we will need to know our serving temperature, because it will determine how much of the water in the recipe will be frozen.

Shall we do a quick example with two different recipes to make it clear?

Let's start with the two recipes below, intentionally twisted to have the same PAC:

From the recipes we can extract the parameters for our hardness calculation:

With these numbers at hand we can get to the calculations. The first thing we will do is to determine the Normalised PAC (PACn) of the recipe. This is the recipe's PAC applied over its Total Water (TW), and is a very straight-forward calculation as follows:

Therefore, in our two examples above we will have:

As you can already see, although the recipes have the same PAC, they yield different results due to their different water content. It is clear that the Sorbetto will have more frozen water, because once normalised it has a lower anti-freezing power.

Now that we have the normalised PAC of our recipes, the next step is to find out how much lower is the freezing point of the water in each of them, a.k.a. the recipe's Freezing Point (FD). For that we will use the Leighton table we mentioned earlier:

So in our example, we can extrapolate the following Freezing Point (FP) values:

Fior di latte: approx. -2.5ºC

Lemon sorbetto: approx. -2.0ºC

From the above you can see clearly that the Sorbetto will freeze at a higher temperature than the Fior di latte, which means it will be harder in the freezer at the same temperature (because it will have more frozen water at that same temperature).

And there you go, you can now see clearly that recipes with the same PAC will freeze at different temperatures, which means that one will be harder than the other at the same temperature in the cabinet. So you now understand that PAC alone cannot be representative of hardness in the cabinet or serving temperature — it can only be (at best) a rough guide.

And well done for that, it is a great step forward!

But you might be asking, 'so… what alternative is there to assess hardness?'

This is something we will cover in more detail in the second part of this article — you got a lot to think about with what we have seen so far.

For now, let's say that much more useful than just the PAC would be to know the freezing point (FP) of a recipe, because if two recipes freeze at the same temperature, their hardness would be similar.

If that makes sense to you, don't miss the next episode. I will cover freezing point and how to calculate it, as well as two factors which I think is much more useful in estimating a cream's hardness.

Stay tuned!

Wrapping Up

1. PAC (or AFP, or FDPD or SE) is usually regarded as the de facto indicator of display hardness and serving temperature;
2. This assumption falls apart at close scrutiny: recipes with the same PAC will freeze at different temperatures so will have different hardness at the same temperature;
3. PAC is only an indication of the potential that the ingredients in a recipe have to lower the freezing point of the water contained it. Therefore it is crucial to calculate the recipe's PAC in relation to the amount of water it contains. We call this normalised PAC (PACn);
4. Once we know the normalised PAC of a recipe we can calculate its freezing point (FP), which is a much more useful figure, as it relates directly to the amount of ice in the recipe at a given temperature and therefore to its hardness at that temperature.

A presto!!

Introduction

If you are a nerd like me and have been doing your gelato-making homework, you will have often come across the acronyms PAC, AFP and/or FPDF. They stand for ‘Potere Anti-Congelante’ (the Italian for ‘Anti-Freezing Power’) and ‘Freezing Point Depression Factor’, respectively.

What all these acronyms refer to is the lowering (or depression) of the freezing point of water that certain ingredients in the recipe cause. By comparing the freezing point depression of each ingredient in proportion to their quantities, we get a number from which we can derive how much lower the freezing temperature of the water in the recipe will be.

This number is called PAC (or AFP, or FPDF) and is used extensively in the ice cream and Gelato industries as an indicator of scoopability and serving temperature. Essentially, the higher the PAC, the softer the cream and the lower the serving temperature. Makes sense, right? If I make water freeze at a lower temperature, it will be softer at my current temperature.

So how does PAC work? And how can I calculate it for my recipe?

Let's have a closer look.

[Note: throughout this article I will use PAC to refer to all above, for simplicity].

Understanding How PAC Works

"1 PAC unit corresponds to the freezing point depression power of 1gr of sucrose dissolved in 100gr of water (i.e. a 1% solution)."

As I mentioned in this article, sugars (but also polyols and salts) have the capacity of lowering the freezing point of water. To understand the mechanics of how this happens, we have to talk a bit about Solutions. In chemistry, a solution is a special type of homogeneous mixture composed of two or more substances. In such a mixture, a solute is a substance dissolved in another substance, known as a solvent. What is key about solutions is that the solvent and the solute bind together and a sort of chemical mating happens.

Water + sugar (in which water is the solvent and sugar the solute) are a classic example. So is water + salt, and water + alcohol.

Not all substances will dissolve in water though. Water + oil (or any fat for that matter) won't bind together, so you will end up with a different type of mixture, which we will discuss in a future article.

In the case of water-based solutions however, an interesting thing happens. , Take the case of water + sugar for example. Not only the sugar will make it taste sweet, it will also lower (depress) the freezing point of water. The same happens with water + salt, and with water + alcohol.

This has many useful applications (think spreading roads with salt in winter to avoid ice forming), but for Gelato and ice cream making it is crucial, because it is by lowering the freezing point of water that we manage to get creamy delicacies at sub-zero temperatures (remember, water freezes at 0ºC at sea level).

But to what extent will sucrose lower the freezing point of water, you may ask? That is a very good questions, but one that we will leave for a future article. Because it is not important for our PAC calculations, You see, PAC is just an index, a relational figure, which tells us the potential that our ingredients have to lower the freezing point of water. So all we need to focus on now is to define what is the reference of this index.

As we already discussed in this article, there are many types of sugars. Sucrose being the most common and by far the most used in Gelato (and ice cream) making, it is only natural that it has been chosen as reference.

With that in mind, some very clever people established our unit of reference as that which corresponds to the freezing point depression power of 1gr of sucrose dissolved in 100gr of water (i.e. a 1% solution). In a massively creative stunt, they called this unit Sucrose Equivalent (SE); which incidentally is just a more scientific acronym, but is essentially the same as PAC, AFP, or FPDF.

So if you take a glass with 100gr of water, add 1gr of sucrose to it you will end up with a PAC (or AFP, or FPDF, or SE) of 1. Add another 4gr of the sweet stuff and you will end up with a PAC of 5.

Simple, huh?!

So now that you know what it is, shall we get to grips with how to calculate it in a recipe?

Calculating PAC

If we only had sucrose and water in our recipes it would be easy, just calculate how many grams of sucrose the recipe has in proportion to 100gr of water. Since most recipe dosages are determined per kg, all you have to do is divide 100/1000 (remembering that 1lt of water = 1kg) and you will find the total PAC of your recipe. As simple as that!

Of course, a Gelato made only with water and sucrose would probably taste rather dull. So we have to find a way to convert other ingredients to PAC so that we can know the total PAC in a recipe with several different ingredients (and get a bit more flavour out of it).

As we mentioned earlier, this can all be calculated if we know the molar mass of our ingredients. But you probably want to spend your time in the lab or kitchen making delicious Gelato instead of tinkering with an Excel spreadsheet and a chemistry encyclopaedia, so I put together a nifty table that lists the PAC of several common ingredients:

You then calculate the amount of any of these substances that appear in our recipe, always in proportion to 100gr in 1,000gr of water. One thing to keep in mind is that some of these ingredients are not pure sugars / salts / polyols. So it is key to apply the values on the table only to the sugar / salt / polyol component of the ingredient.

Sounds complicated? It is not. Let's do a few examples and you will get the hang of it in a snap.

For that, let's use the following recipe for a very simple fior di latte:

The first step is to find all ingredients containing substances that will have an impact on the water's freezing point and isolate their quantities [we will call these substances components]. There are many more, but for practical purposes we will focus on the four main groups that can have a meaningful impact on the overall PAC of a gelato recipe: sugars, polyols, alcohols, and salts.

So in the recipe above we will have the following:

• Milk: 4.9% lactose
• Cream: 2.8% lactose
• Sucrose: 100% sucrose
• Dextrose: 92% glucose

Applying the figures above to the recipe and crossing with the PAC equivalence table, we get the following:

So we can say that the recipe above has the equivalent freezing point depression power of a solution with 24.2gr of sugar in 100gr of water.

And ecco qua!!, this is how the PAC of any recipe can be calculated.

Most Gelato balancing software will perform these calculations automatically for you, but now you know how they do (or should do) it. And if you don't have a Gelato balancing software yet — or don't plan to get one any time soon — worry not, I prepared this nifty spreadsheet so that you can always come back, enter the ingredients of your recipe and their parameters in the yellow boxes, and it will calculate the overall PAC for you.

[please note that clicking on the image will open the spreadsheet in a new google sheets window]

Nifty, huh?! :)

The Uses of PAC

"If you compare two recipes, everything else being the same, the one with the higher PAC will be softer at the same temperature in the cabinet."

That whole calculation is all very nifty and clever, but why do I need to know this, you might be asking?

The answer to that question is twofold:

First and foremost, knowing the PAC of your recipe will give you an indication of its potential to lower the freezing point of water. And since water is soft and ice is hard, the lower the freezing point, the softer your cream will be. So although there are a few other key factors at play (which I will discuss in a future article), by knowing the PAC of your recipe you will have a rough indication of its hardness potential. What this means is that if you compare two recipes, everything else being the same, the one with the higher PAC will be softer at the same temperature in the cabinet.

Second, by trial and error, Gelatiere have developed a few rules of thumb for knowing how a typical Gelato recipe will behave in the cabinet. So by balancing your recipe to standard values, you will be able to have a cream behaving to industry standards. This rule of thumb applies as follows:

For milk Gelato: PAC ÷ 2 = ideal serving temperature for scoopability. Recommended PAC range is between 24–28 for a serving temperature of -12º to -14ºC.

For Sorbettos: PAC ÷ 2.5 = ideal serving temperature for scoopability. Recommended PAC range is between 30 and 36 for a serving temperature of -12º to -14ºC.

* All the above are references only and can vary from artisan to artisan according to personal preference.

Now, there are severe limitations to this trick — not least because scoopability is influenced by a few key factors other than PAC — but for practical purposes it is a good reference if we take it for what it is: a starting point.

And being of widespread use in the industry, it is a good thing that anyone intending to balance their own recipes knows how it works.

In a future article I will discuss a more objective method to calculate scoopability and serving temperature which includes two other key factors. But for now you should have a good grip of what PAC is, how to calculate it and what is its use.

Bravo!!

Wrapping Up

1. PAC stands for 'Potere AntiCongelante' and is the same as AFP (Anti Freezing Power); FPDF (Freezing Point Depression Factor); and SE (Sucrose Equivalent).
2. It indicates the potential a substance has to lower the freezing temperature of water compared to that of 1gr of sucrose diluted in 100gr of water.
3. You can calculate the PAC of a substance by using its molar mass, or use handy tables that provide a number for several different ingredients.
4. Conversely, you can calculate the overall PAC of a recipe by factoring the PAC of individual ingredients and their dosages. Example: milk has 4.9% lactose, which has a PAC of 100. So 500gr of milk will have a PAC of 2.45, while 1,000gr of milk will have a PAC of 4.9.
5. The total PAC of a recipe will influence its hardness in the cabinet, so it is important to keep it within recommended ranges when balancing.

A presto!!

Introduction

Being a dessert, mostly anyone would expect Gelato to contain sugar. But as a maker or a taster, have you ever really thought about how much sugar really goes into yours? Because it might be more than you think and, living in a world threatened by a pandemic of obesity and diabetes, that knowledge is actually more important than you think.

In this article I will discuss various ways of counting the sugar input of the ingredients of a recipe. It is mostly aimed at gelato makers, but should also provide valuable insights to those who only enjoy theirs.

A bit of background

Gelato as we know it wouldn’t exist without sugar. It is true that today it is perfectly possible to make delicious gelato without any added sugar, but the sweet stuff has been one of the three crucial ingredients of gelato making for centuries.

One day I will write an in-depth article about sugar, but today lets stick to the fundamentals for the sake of focus:

• What is sugar? the answer will vary depending on whom you ask, but for practical purposes we will stick to the most widely accepted description of sugars as 'simple soluble carbohydrates of the type mono or disaccharide, found in food', as provided by the European Food Safety Authority. Making this clear is important for two reasons: a) it makes us realise that there are many more sugars than just sucrose (the technical name for table sugar); b) it helps us determine what we are not considering sugar: polyols (i.e. sweeteners); and complex carbohydrates (i.e. hydrolised starches of the oligosaccharide type)
• Where do we find sugars? In more foods than you think. The first thing that comes to mind are fruits of course, but it can also be naturally found in vegetables, pulses and even nuts. Unbeknownst to many though, a lot of processed foods these days - even savoury ones (i.e. barbecue sauce and tomato soup) - have added sugar. So in fact you are probably ingesting much more sugar on a daily basis than you think.
• Is sugar bad for you? Well, as a carbohydrate, sugar is one of the three key human macronutrients. So eating sugar is perfectly in line with a natural, balanced diet . But as the adage goes, the difference between the poison and the medicine lies in the dosage. A reasonable intake of quality sugars will provide you with readily available energy to zap around and/or keep your brain running, while too much of it will put your metabolism off and eventually lead to chronic diseases (i.e. obesity, diabetes).
• Natural vs. added sugar. A key factor in defining the quality of a sugar is its type. Naturally occurring sugars are, expectedly, generally easier on the body's metabolism, while industrially processed sugars tend to be a little nastier. In general, dietary recommendations refer to the amount of processed sugar in a diet. I will use the World Health Organisation's term intrinsic sugar for those naturally occurring in food (i.e. fruits) and the term added sugar to everything else, irrespective of source.

Lastly, it is also important to clarify the functions sugar performs in our gelato, because there is more to carbohydrates than meets the eye.

• Sugar's first function is obvious: it makes things sweet (duh!).
• But it also plays sexy games with water, lowering its freezing point. By way of reference, 100gr of sucrose mixed in 1 litre of water will cause it to freeze at -0.54ºC instead of 0ºC (at sea level), while with the same amount of fructose it will do so at -1.03ºC. This is important because without sugar, you would have a block of ice in your freezer instead of that silky luscious cream you can't help but eat compulsively.
• And finally, different sugars blend with other stuff in different ways, influencing a mix's viscosity, texture and crystallisation, among others. That's why, in order to achieve that irresistible heaven-like texture we all love, expert gelato chefs judiciously blend different types of sugars in their recipes.

So now you know what sugar is and that there is more to it than making things sweet. With that extra bit in our knowledge chest, lets get on with checking how much sugar there is in our gelato.

A sweet list

In theory you could make gelato from just a few very basic ingredients (milk, cream, table sugar, and a flavouring). But as we have seen above, sugar plays many key roles in gelato making, and different sugars do so differently. Therefore, knowing their sugars is crucial for anyone pretending to make authentic gelato, whether at home or professionally.

That full article on sugars will come one day, but in the meanwhile and as an introduction, below is a table with the most common sugars and some of their characteristics.

The sugars most commonly used in gelato making are:

• Sucrose: a disaccharide (i.e. composed of two carbohydrate molecules), and by far the most used. It is easily available, inexpensive, neutral in flavour and colour, and has a medium level of sweetness and freezing point depression power (FPDP);
• Dextrose: a monosaccharide, also very common. It is more expensive than sucrose, but less sweet and with a higher FPDP. It increases mix viscosity and helps prevent recrystallisation;
• Glucose syrup: a blend of saccharides, also called confectioner’s sugar. More expensive than both above, it can be found in liquid or powder (dry) forms with a lower sweetness and FPDP per total solid mass. It is used to smoothen the texture, help prevent recrystallisation and provide bulk. Not all its solids are sugars, so it is normally sold with an indication of Dextrose Equivalence (DE): for example, 42DE means 42% of solids are sugars;
• Maltodextrin: another blend of saccharides. It has even lower sweetness and FPDP than glucose syrup, but helps smoothen the texture, improve mouthfeel and provide bulk.

Case Study

Now that we know a little bit more about the sugars that can make their way into a gelato, let's crack on with the main topic of this article and figure out how much sugar we have in an example gelato recipe.

First things first, the recipe:

Looking at the list, some ingredients containing sugars stand out and are easy to spot, such as sucrose, dextrose and dry glucose syrup. But how much sugar is there in each of them? And is there any other ingredient that also contains sugar?

Lets have a look.

Gelato breakdown

Don’t worry, this is not the emotional type of breakdown, we will only look into the composition of each ingredient :)

For this, our best ally is a nutrition facts table. Whenever available, I prefer to use the product's nutrition table but in the absence of that, I often use this source. With a quick search we can find that the following ingredients contain sugar:

• Milk: 4.9% lactose
• Cream: 2.8% lactose
• SMP: 54.5% lactose

With regards to the added sugars, there are two aspects to consider: a) the proportion of solids in the total weight (powders can contain a bit of moisture); and b) the proportion of the total solids that are actually sugar.

This information can usually be found in the products label or in the online source mentioned above.

After checking those in the recipe we come out with:

• Sucrose: 100% solids, of which 100% are sugars
• Dextrose: 92% solids, of which 100% are sugars
• Dry glucose syrup 38DE: 96% solids, 38% of which equivalent to sugars.

Bravo! We are now ready to build a table and calculate the sugar content of our recipe:

So in this recipe we have 227 grams of sugar out of 1,000. Further, we can see that of these, 58 grams are intrinsic and 169 added. Now we can prepare an amounts statement:

• 23% total sugars, of which
• 6% are intrinsic sugars
• 17% are added sugars

The distinction between intrinsic and added is important, because different jurisdictions have different food labelling rules. In the EU, where I am based, we are obliged to list the whole sugar content of a product (i.e. both intrinsic and added), whereas in other jurisdictions only the added sugar is required.

In any case, irrespective of the rules where you live, with what you learned today you will be able to confidently list the sugar quantities in your gelato and make sure you get it right.

Bravo!

Wrapping up

So there you have it. You now have a pretty good idea of the sugar composition of a recipe and how to calculate it.

In a nutshell:

1. Sugars are carbohydrates of the mono and disaccharide types that can be found in a variety of foods. Given growing concerns about the negative impact of unbalanced diets on health, it is paramount to know the amount of sugar in our recipes to keep its intake within recommended levels, and/or to comply with local Food Safety regulations.
2. Different sugars are used in gelato making due to the specific functions they perform (sweetening, reducing water's freezing point, improving structure and texture). Some gelato ingredients contain naturally occurring sugars, which must also be taken into account.
3. By checking the sugar content of each ingredient in a nutrition facts table we are able to calculate the total amount of sugars in a recipe, and also the proportion of intrinsic (i.e. naturally occurring) sugars versus added sugars.

A presto!!