Ice Cream 101

Last week, Jacob, Andy and I began taking an ice cream course so we can learn how to make and sell our own ice cream. The guy who gives the course is 78 years old and has been in the business for more than 50 years. According to him, ice cream is the healthiest food on the planet. "El helado es lo más nutritivo que hay. Yo no sé si hay un alimento más nutritivo del helado," he says. Estoy totalmente de acuerdo. Some of the awesome stuff we're learning is food chemistry, pasteurization techniques and necessary equipment. Here's an overview of what we've covered so far:

+ Fat is an essential element in cream-based ice cream, and the best-tasting fat usually comes from milk and cream. The higher the fat content, the heavier the ice cream. Parlours in Buenos Aires make ice cream that range from 6.5 percent to 10 percent fat content. Ice cream in Mendoza is around 6 percent. Ben and Jerry's is approximately 16 percent.

+ Industrial ice cream all tastes the same because the factories produce one flavour base -- called neutral base -- and then add colours, flavours, powders, syrups and other stuff to it. This is how ice cream is made at home. The high-quality Italian (and Argentine) ice creams are made individually and from scratch. No common base.

+ Crystal formation in ice cream is the hallmark of a lousy batch, a lousy recipe, lousy ingredients or a lousy chef. Water-based ice creams like sherberts and sorbets, which have lower fat contents and are more likely to be wrecked by freezer frost, have more sugar for flavour and to prevent it from freezing into a solid cube, and more stabilizers to minimize the formation of crystals.

+ Most ice cream is air. Industrial ice creams have the most air; artesenal ice creams (like the ones you find here) have considerably less air. The second most important ingredient water. Most ice creams have between only 32 percent and 38 percent solid ingredients. The rest? Air and water.

+ It's important to use fresh ingredients, but there are shortcuts. For example, cream-based fruit flavours are made with a processed fruit pulp rather than fresh fruit (unless it's to give visual appeal, like chunks of strawberries in strawberry ice cream). Powdered whole milk tastes the same as fresh whole milk. There is even such thing as powdered egg yolks (!!!).

The highlight of the course is the 10 kilos we will each (!!!) make in the final class. Thanks to everyone who has already volunteered to eat it.

Ice cream updates:

Scanapieco (Av. Córdoba at Scalabrini Ortiz): an ice cream parlour that is something of a porteño establishment and a pit stop on memory lane. The place itself is a little run down, decorated in linoleum chic, fake wooden tables and fraying wicker chairs -- the idea is that it be reminiscient of the old Italian gelaterías from the time when Italian immigration to Argentina was changing the culinary landscape of the city and country. The ice cream is phenomenal, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. One wall is plastered with newspaper clippings and city guides that the heladería has been mentioned in. I had chocolate and mint chocolate chip (5 pesos! but I have to admit, the portions were small). The chocolate was average, but the mint chocolate chip was probably the best I have ever tasted. Mint is usually a heavy flavour but this one was light and smooth, with melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chunks. Jacob loved his dulce de leche and tiramisu. Thanks goes to my boss, Sara, for the recommendation.