Ice cream

**Ice cream** (derived from earlier **iced cream** or **cream ice**) is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from dairy milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and any spice, such as cocoa or vanilla. Colourings are usually added, in addition to stabilizers. The mixture is stirred to incorporate air spaces and cooled below the freezing point of water to prevent detectable ice crystals from forming. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam that is solid at very low temperatures (below 2 °C or 35 °F). It becomes more malleable as its temperature increases.

The meaning of the name "ice cream" varies from one country to another. Terms such as "frozen custard," "frozen yogurt," "sorbet," "gelato," and others are used to distinguish different varieties and styles. In some countries, such as the United States, "ice cream" applies only to a specific variety, and most governments regulate the commercial use of the various terms according to the relative quantities of the main ingredients, notably the amount of cream. Products that do not meet the criteria to be called ice cream are sometimes labelled "**frozen dairy dessert**" instead. In other countries, such as Italy and Argentina, one word is used for all variants. Analogues made from dairy alternatives, such as goat's or sheep's milk, or milk substitutes (e.g., soy, cashew, coconut, almond milk or tofu), are available for those who are lactose intolerant, allergic to dairy protein, or vegan.

Ice cream may be served in dishes, for eating with a spoon, or licked from edible cones. Ice cream may be served with other desserts, such as apple pie, or as an ingredient in ice cream floats, sundaes, milkshakes, ice cream cakes and even baked items, such as Baked Alaska.

## History

### Iran (Persia)

The history of ice creams probably began around 500 BC in the Achaemenid Empire of Iran (Persia) with ice combined with flavors to produce summertime treats. In 400 BC, the Persians invented a special chilled food, made of rose water and vermicelli, which was served to royalty during summers. The ice was mixed with saffron, fruits, and various other flavours. The most popular Persian ice cream now is bastani sonnati.

### Ancient Greece

During the 5th century BC, ancient Greeks ate snow mixed with honey and fruit in the markets of Athens. Hippocrates encouraged his Ancient Greek patients to eat ice *"as it livens the life-juices and increases the well-being."*

### China

A frozen mixture of milk and rice was used in China around 200 BC. "They poured a mixture of snow and saltpetre over the exteriors of containers filled with syrup, for, in the same way as salt raises the boiling point of water, it lowers the freezing point to below zero."

### Rome

The Roman Emperor Nero (37–68 AD) had ice brought from the mountains and combined it with fruit toppings to create chilled delicacies.

### South Asia

In the sixteenth century, the Persianate Mughal emperors from the Indian subcontinent used relays of horsemen to bring ice from the Hindu Kush to Delhi, where it was used in fruit sorbets. Qulfi is a popular frozen dairy dessert from the Indian subcontinent and is often described as "traditional South Asian ice cream." It originated in the sixteenth century in the Mughal Empire and actually adopted from bastani sonnati, a Persian ice cream.

When Italian duchess Catherine de' Medici married the Duke of Orléans (Henry II of France) in 1533, she is said to have brought with her to France some Italian chefs who had recipes for flavoured ices or sorbets. One hundred years later, Charles I of England was reportedly so impressed by the "frozen snow" that he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative. There is no historical evidence to support these legends, which first appeared during the 19th century.

The first recipe in French for flavoured ices appears in 1674, in Nicholas Lemery's *Recueil de curiositéz rares et nouvelles de plus admirables effets de la nature*. Recipes for *sorbetti* saw publication in the 1694 edition of Antonio Latini's *Lo Scalco alla Moderna* (The Modern Steward). Recipes for flavoured ices begin to appear in François Massialot's *Nouvelle Instruction pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits*, starting with the 1692 edition. Massialot's recipes result in a coarse, pebbly texture. Latini claims that the results of his recipes should have the fine consistency of sugar and snow.

Ice cream recipes first appeared in England in the 18th century. The recipe for ice cream was published in *Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts* in London in 1718.

To ice cream.

Take Tin Ice-Pots, fill them with any Sort of Cream you like, either plain or sweeten’d, or Fruit in it; shut your Pots very close; to six Pots you must allow eighteen or twenty Pound of Ice, breaking the Ice very small; there will be some great Pieces, which lay at the Bottom and Top: You must have a Pail, and lay some Straw at the Bottom; then lay in your Ice, and put in amongst it a Pound of Bay-Salt; set in your Pots of Cream, and lay Ice and Salt between every Pot, that they may not touch; but the Ice must lie round them on every Side; lay a good deal of Ice on the Top, cover the Pail with Straw, set it in a Cellar where no Sun or Light comes, it will be froze in four Hours, but it may stand longer; then take it out just as you use it; hold it in your Hand and it will slip out. When you wou’d freeze any Sort of Fruit, either Cherries, Raspberries, Currants, or Strawberries, fill your Tin-Pots with the Fruit, but as hollow as you can; put to them Lemonade, made with Spring-Water and Lemmon-Juice sweeten’d; put enough in the Pots to make the Fruit hang together, and put them in Ice as you do Cream.

### North America

An early North American reference to ice cream is from 1744: "Among the rarities..was some fine ice cream, which, with the strawberries and milk, eat most deliciously."

Quaker colonists introduced ice cream to the United States, bringing their ice cream recipes with them. Confectioners sold ice cream at their shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era. Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were known to have regularly eaten and served ice cream. Records, kept by a merchant from Catham street, New York, show George Washington spending approximately $200 on ice cream in the summer of 1790. The same records show president Thomas Jefferson having an 18-step recipe for ice cream. First Lady Dolley Madison, wife of U.S. President James Madison, served ice cream at her husband's Inaugural Ball in 1813.

Small-scale hand-cranked ice cream freezers were invented in England by Agnes Marshall and in America by Nancy Johnson in the 1840s.

The most popular flavours of ice cream in North America (based on consumer surveys) are vanilla and chocolate.

## Production

Before the development of modern refrigeration, ice cream was a luxury reserved for special occasions. Making it was quite laborious; ice was cut from lakes and ponds during the winter and stored in holes in the ground, or in wood-frame or brick ice houses, insulated by straw. Many farmers and plantation owners, including U.S. Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, cut and stored ice in the winter for use in the summer. Frederic Tudor of Boston turned ice harvesting and shipping into a big business, cutting ice in New England and shipping it around the world.

Ice cream was made by hand in a large bowl placed inside a tub filled with ice and salt. This is called the pot-freezer method. French confectioners refined the pot-freezer method, making ice cream in a sorbetière [fr] (a covered pail with a handle attached to the lid). In the pot-freezer method, the temperature of the ingredients is reduced by the mixture of crushed ice and salt. The salt water is cooled by the ice, and the action of the salt on the ice causes it to (partially) melt, absorbing latent heat and bringing the mixture below the freezing point of pure water. The immersed container can also make better thermal contact with the salty water and ice mixture than it could with ice alone.

The hand-cranked churn, which also uses ice and salt for cooling, replaced the pot-freezer method. The exact origin of the hand-cranked freezer is unknown, but the first U.S. patent for one was #3254 issued to Nancy Johnson on 9 September 1843. The hand-cranked churn produced smoother ice cream than the pot freezer and did it quicker. Many inventors patented improvements on Johnson's design.

In Europe and early America, ice cream was made and sold by small businesses, mostly confectioners and caterers. Jacob Fussell of Baltimore, Maryland was the first to manufacture ice cream on a large scale. Fussell bought fresh dairy products from farmers in York County, Pennsylvania, and sold them in Baltimore. An unstable demand for his dairy products often left him with a surplus of cream, which he made into ice cream. He built his first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania, in 1851. Two years later, he moved his factory to Baltimore. Later, he opened factories in several other cities and taught the business to others, who operated their own plants. Mass production reduced the cost of ice cream and added to its popularity.

The development of industrial refrigeration by German engineer Carl von Linde during the 1870s eliminated the need to cut and store natural ice, and, when the continuous-process freezer was perfected in 1926, commercial mass production of ice cream and the birth of the modern ice cream industry was underway.

In modern times, a common method for producing ice cream at home is to use an ice cream maker, an electrical device that churns the ice cream mixture while cooled inside a household freezer. Some more expensive models have an built-in freezing element. A newer method is to add liquid nitrogen to the mixture while stirring it using a spoon or spatula for a few seconds; a similar technique, advocated by Heston Blumenthal as ideal for home cooks, is to add dry ice to the mixture while stirring for a few minutes. Some ice cream recipes call for making a custard, folding in whipped cream, and immediately freezing the mixture. Another method is to use a pre-frozen solution of salt and water, which gradually melts as the ice cream freezes.

Borden's Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk circulated a recipe for making ice cream at home. It may be made in an ice cube tray with condensed milk, cream, and various simple flavourings. It can be ready to serve after as little as four hours of freezing. Fresh or frozen fruit, nuts, chocolate, and other ingredients may be added as well.

An unusual method of making ice cream was done during World War II by American fighter pilots based in the South Pacific. They attached pairs of 5-US-gallon (19 l) cans to their aircraft. The cans were fitted with a small propeller, this was spun by the slipstream and drove a stirrer, which agitated the mixture while the intense cold of high altitude froze it. B-17 crews in Europe did something similar on their bombing runs as did others.