Ice Cream Recipes

Ice cream is a dairy frozen dairy food made by freezing a pasteurized liquid mix under agitation to incorporate air and to ensure uniformity of texture. The mix is composed of a combination of milk ingredients, sugar, dextrose and corn syrup. While there are many ice cream recipes, government food regulations require that all ice cream contain a specified minimum percentage of milk fat as well as the amount of food solids and microbial quality.

The history of ice cream goes back a long way - possibly to around 200BC in China - but certainly to the point where much of its early history is no more than folklore. Many stories abound of famous people enjoying early forms of ice cream - from the Roman Emperor Nero who is said to have had snow brought down from the mountains to freeze his favorite drinks, to Marco Polo who returned from the Far East with a type of ice cream sorbet recipe, to King Charles I of England whose cook developed a frozen cream recipe.

The first step towards giving us the kind of ice cream we enjoy today was made by Nancy Johnson (USA) who invented the hand-crank freezer (1846). In the 1920s Clarence Vogt produced the first continuous process freezer which opened up the possibility for commercial ice cream manufacture.

The most popular flavor of ice cream - Vanilla. Vanilla comes from the plant vanilla planifolia - a member of the orchid family - grown mainly in Madagascar but also Mexico, parts of South America, Tahiti and islands off E. Africa. The vanilla extract produced from the plant in each of these areas has its own very distinct characteristics.

The worlds top 5 consumers of ice cream in order: United States of America, New Zealand, Denmark, Australia, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The UK has more than 1,000 ice cream companies with annual consumption estimated at 8 liters per person. Ice cream consumption in the USA is circa 21 liters per person per year. Approx 13% of men and just 8% of women will admit to licking the bowl clean after eating ice cream.

One out of every 5 ice cream eaters is a middle of the night 'binger', usually in the 18-24 year old age bracket. Men do this more than women. Around 5% of people share their ice cream with their pet cat or dog. Biggest ice cream sundae - 12ft tall made with 4,667 gallons of ice cream - California, USA 1985.

Ice cream figured in the lives of some of the most famous people in history including Marco Polo, Emperor Nero and Charles I. Elvis Presley is said to have loved ice cream - apparently his favorites were chocolate milkshakes and peach ice cream.