ICE CREAM AND FROZEN DESSERTS | Manufacture

Ice cream and related frozen dairy desserts are comprised of combinations of milk fat, milk solids-not-fat, sugars, stabilizers, emulsifiers and water, which are supplied by many potential dairy and non-dairy ingredients. The manufacturing steps include pasteurization, to ensure food safety; homogenization, to fully disperse fat and non-fat ingredients; ageing of the mix, to allow for crystallization of the fat and other physico-chemical changes; flavouring of the mix; dynamic freezing of the mix under shear with concomitant whipping to −5 to −7 °C, to create microscopically-small ice crystals and air bubbles and to establish a fat structure network and freeze-concentrate the sugars and other solutes and dispersed ingredients; flavouring of the semi-frozne ice cream with particulates such as fruits, nuts, bakery or candy pieces or ripples sauces; packaging the ice cream or optionally forming the ice cream into shapes for hand-held products; and static hardening/hardening, to continue the ice crystallization and freeze-concentration process to temperatures below −25 °C, to provide optimum structure and long-term stability.