PRODUCTION OF BALANCED ICE CREAM MIXES

Manufacturers produce ice cream to meet the requirements of consumers as interpreted by the
retailers or those selling directly to consumers.

In many situations the ice cream manufacturer will have a final product specification to
meet. An ice cream recipe must be produced for this specification. One element of this
specification is related to the composition of the final product including legal requirements e.g.
for fat and milk protein. In the UK ice cream must contain a minimum of 5% fat and a minimum
of 2.5% milk protein. A compositional specification will typically specify the fat, milk solids, not
fat, sugar, emulsifier and stabilizer concentrations in the final product. In this situation the
manufacturer will select ingredients that can supply the above components, blend these and then
process to produce a finished ice cream.

Calculations will be required to ensure that the ingredients are correctly formulated to
meet the final product specification.

Fat/ Sugar Balance

Fat adds certain taste and other qualities to food. In ice cream a relationship is balanced between
sugar concentration and fat concentration. The relationship between fat and sugar concentrations
is also influenced by the type of freezer used.

Freezer type Fat concentration Sugar concentration

Vertical 6 12
Vertical 7 12.5
Vertical 8 13
Horizontal 9 13.5
Horizontal 10 14
Continuous 10 14
Continuous 12 15
From Rothwell (1985)
Ice cream- A smooth, sweet, cold food prepared from a frozen mixture of milk products and
1 flavourings eaten as a snack or dessert.
Sarah Hack
Recommended fat and sugar concentrations for ice cream mixes using various types of freezer.

Note the fat/sugar ratios above should be regarded as approximate and will need to be modified
to meet differing consumer requirements. The market had also changed since Rothwell’s work in
1985 and some of the more popular types of dairy ice cream may contain high concentrations of
fat. Also, sweetners other than sucrose have become more extensively used. However, from a
product development perspective the information in Table 1 provides a useful start.

Some research has been published in the optimal fat and sugar concentrations required for
maximum acceptability of ice cream. Surprisingly, perhaps, there appears to be agreement in that
fat concentrations around 14% and sugar concentration of around 15% give the most acceptable
ice cream.
 Reference

Hyde, K.A and Rothwell, J. (1973). Ice cream. Edinburgh, Scotland: Churchill Livingstone.

Mullan, WMA. (2007). Ice cream. Principles of ice cream mix calculation (online). Available
from: http://www.dairyscience.info/index.php/ice-cream/154-ice-cream-mix.Html. Accessed: 3
January, 2014. Modified August 2010. Modified September 2012.

Rothwell, J. (1985) Ice cream. Reading University, UK. Published by Dr. James Rothwell.
Available through the Ice Cream Alliance.

Ice cream- A smooth, sweet, cold food prepared from a frozen mixture of milk products and
3 flavourings eaten as a snack or dessert.
Sarah Hack