Maybe I am going crazy, but I have noticed a difference about ice cream and its only been Maybe the last 8-10 years was when I first noticed it.
Ice cream from the supermarket doesn’t seem to melt properly, and is also way too soft. This seems most noticeable in novelties now, but also most hard ice cream as well.
Did they add some component to make it softer or less likely to freezer burn? Am I just going crazy?
(US, but I assume anywhere else where the same brands are sold have had the same issue.)
Gums like guar and xanth. In small amounts they make ice cream better and help keep ice crystals small. I use them in my homemade ice cream.
Used in larger amounts they replace fat at the cost of taste and mouth feel. That’s what makes the ice cream stay a gel at room temp.
One thing most have done is incorporate more air, as part of shrinkflation. That makes it more soft because it’s less actual product.
Yep. Cause they sell per volume, not weight
They started using stabilizers in cheap ice cream a while back. That helps it have the fluffy texture you expect even though it doesn’t have nearly enough fat to churn up nicely by itself.
Buy expensive ice cream with a higher fat content (more cream content and or egg yolks,) it’s worth the extra money.
Also it helps to bring an insulated freezer bag when you go to the store, the melt and refreeze between the store freezer and home does unpleasant things to ice cream texture. If you’ve ever had icy or hard ice cream it has probably melted at some point during transit before refreezing.
Edit: if you feel like microdosing ice cream facts today here’s a treat from 18y ago: https://archive.ph/2012.09.09-004911/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/dining/26cream.html?_r=1. Cheap ice cream is a pretty heavily engineered food at this point.
I’m more annoyed with the shrinkflation of increasing the aeration and how almost every brand shrunk their standard size from 1.75qt to 1.5qt (1656mL to 1420mL)
Umpqua was the last holdout in my area before they caved.
And the 1.75 qt was from a previous shrinkflation from the 2 qt size that used to be standard. I just quit buying ice cream because I’m tired of the BS.
Make sure the words Ice Cream are on the container, otherwise it is only a frozen dairy dessert. You will be surprised how many are not really ice cream.
Changed with ice cream in general? No. But there are things that have been possible to add to ice cream for a while that do what you describe. It could be that you’re just starting to notice, you shifted brands, or the brand you liked shifted formulations.
Many people dislike the things that get added to ice cream, and so there are definitely brands out there that don’t include those things.
In my opinion the worst of the additives is not nearly as bad as a lot of people would make them out to be.In the broadest sense possible ice cream is sugar, fat, water and thickener where the fat has been cooled to a solid and allowed to just start to re-form into a lump, the ice hasn’t been allowed to form crystals big enough to notice, and the thickener and sugars glue the fat and ice together such that they trap miniature air bubbles.
Some people insist that the fat and thickener have to come from cow milk in the form of milk fat and milk proteins, but that’s a bit pedantic for my tastes.The easiest way to cheap out on ice cream is to add a lot more air. Since we sell it based on volume, if we churn more air into it we get more ice cream to sell for the same quantity of ingredients, and the only effect is that the ice cream is lighter, softer and fluffier.
There’s a legal maximum to how much air you can mix in though.The next hurdle you run into is that milk proteins are actually kinda shit at keeping those air bubbles trapped. Adding things like guar gum or carrageenan will make it much gloopier and hold those air bubbles better.
This makes the ice cream last longer in a warehouse without the bubbles getting out and leaving your ice cream as a brick.Next is rampant ice crystal spread, which can turn the ice cream into a brick in the warehouse. This can be slowed down using something called methylcellulose. It’s basically processed plant fiber ground into a powder. It’s also used in pills as the inert binder, and as a dietary fiber source.
It’s popular because is known to be safe and inert, it’s very cheap, it prevents ice crystal formation, and it has the fun quirk of getting thicker as it warms, for the added property of keeping your ice cream fluffy and areated as it warms up on your drive home.Finally, you can tweak the fat blend. This one isn’t as common because milk fat is already insanely cheap since we subsidize the hell out of the dairy industry.
Changing the blend to use fats that are solid at higher temperatures does have utility for things you expect to be eaten slower, at higher temperatures, or if you want parents to not be mad that your ice cream makes kids extra sticky.By far the biggest way that I’ve cream will save costs is by putting as much air in it as possible. It lets them sell you less in the same size box for the same price.
It’s a case where shrinkflation means making things bigger, which is fun.The brands that didn’t take that route invariably rebranded as “premium” ice creams, so they can charge more for the same thing without raising consumer ire.
Ice cream is always about churning air into cream. But nowadays the air ratio has definitely gone up. Seemingly across the board.
And that assumes that you’re not buying a brand that has gotten into the fakery.
I like to pay extra for a good ice cream that has just natural ingredients in it and not a bunch of chemicals.
You’re not alone
I’ve found that most generic store brand ice creams are high quality. Double check the label to make sure it actually says “ice cream” and not “frozen dairy dessert” or something. Ice cream is a regulated term and requires a minimum percentage of buttermilk to be called such.
My experience has been the exact opposite.
As there may be regional differences, you might want to specify your area. For example, ice cream in the UK doesn’t have to meet the same requirements as in the USA, so oddities like cheap ice cream made with no dairy or cream is possible, using vegetable oil instead. Evan Edinger has a video on UK ice cream in particular: https://youtu.be/CfM7yZD0PlE
I am from the US and I first noticed it a long time ago with certain novelty type ice cream products. Then eventually it seemed like some of the cheaper brands changed to add whatever softening thing to it. Now it seems like almost all brands have it, even regional brands known for their quality seem to be the same.
I almost remember it was advertised by the regional brand Friendly’s as “creamy”, and you could buy other flavors and avoid it… but now it’s all seems to be like that.
Also, they just don’t really seem to freezer burn nearly as bad, which is nice… if you liked the product in the first place.
Freezers are far more efficient and able to compensate for the ambient temperatures. I appreciate the softer stuff. But remember having to de ice freezers in my youth.
Depending, it could be your freezer, if you’re storing it there for a bit.
Haagen Daaz has been the only brand worth buying for at least a decade now.
Aren’t they owned by Nestle though?
Häagen-Dazs is always disappointing though because they use skim milk instead of full fat cream. Tillamook is so much better.
No, but that’s also just after I lost my sweet tooth so you’re probably asking the wrong person here. If you’d asked me a decade earlier I’d probably have a much more cromulent answer
