Cool, rich and creamy treats like ice cream, sherbet, sorbet,
and gelato are some of life's best simple treasures. They are all
delicious, but there are distinctions between the types of frozen
dessert. As with most food items, exceptions blur the lines among
the desserts, and there are peculiarities between countries that
make strict definitions nearly impossible. If you are a stickler
for definitional purity, this article may prove vexing.
To explain the characteristics of each type of treat, we will
progress from lightest to heaviest. Sorbets are the most delicate
of the bunch because they contain no dairy (at least in the US; in
countries outside the US, sorbet has a broader definition). Most
commonly, sorbets are fruit-based and at their most basic contain
only fruit and sugar. However, we know that food definitions are
never that simple. Some sorbets eschew fruit in favor of
ingredients such as
wine,
coffee,
chocolate and even
beer. To make things more confusing, there are a fair number of
recipes labeled as sorbet but which include dairy.
A close relative of sorbet is
granita. The major distinction between the two is that granita
has a grainier texture, since it is usually made by freezing the
ingredients without stirring, allowing larger ice crystals to form.
According to Larousse Gastronomique, another cousin to sorbet is
agraz, which hails from North Africa. The highly acidic agraz is
made from almonds, verjuice, and sugar.
On the next rung up the richness ladder sits sherbet. The original sherbet
(aka sharbat) is a drink made with fruit juice, sugar, and water,
but in the US it has come to be known as a frozen dessert
containing fruit and dairy or fat (and rarely, egg whites or
gelatin). In the UK, sherbet is a completely different product
altogether, a fizzy powder used in confections. Purists maintain
that sherbet is always fruit-based, but there are exceptions,
including this Lemongrass-basil
sherbet from Bon Appetit Magazine, and Iced
coffee and almond sherbet from Serious Eats.
Sherbet differs from ice cream in the amount of milk or dairy
product. Usually sherbet has about half as much dairy as ice cream,
but no bright line divides the two. In her recent book Hello My Name is Ice
Cream, Dana Cree notes that she labelled her Strawberry
sherbet as ice cream in her store. (As an aside, I just
made that recipe and it is delicious. My husband says it has the
most intense strawberry flavor of any strawberry ice cream/sherbet
he has ever eaten.)
Moving on to next level of lushness, we find ice cream. The term
'ice cream' covers different combinations of dairy product, sugar,
and other ingredients, but most countries regulate this particular
phrase. The US Department of Agriculture demands that any
product with the label must contain at least 10% milkfat. In
Canada, the requirement is slightly less stringent; ice cream can
be 8% milkfat if the recipe includes cocoa or syrups. Otherwise,
the ice cream must be 10% milkfat. There are added complexities in
the UK. There, the Food Standards Agency requires 'dairy ice cream'
to have 2.5% milk protein and .5% dairy fat. However, products
labelled only as 'ice cream' may contain vegetable fat instead of
dairy fat. In Australia, any
product called ice cream must contain cream or milk products or
both, with no less than 10% milkfat and 168 g/litre of food
solids.
All types of ice cream require churning to incorporate air into
the mixture and to prevent large ice crystals from forming. Without
churning, ice cream would be hard and grainy - not a pleasant
treat. Commercial producers use the term "overrun" to describe the
trapped air as a percentage of total volume after churning compared
to that of the un-churned base. Low-cost commercial ice creams
approach 100% overrun - that is, equal volumes of air and ice cream
base. Most aficionados prefer a density of about 25% overrun. The
amount of air trapped in the churning process depends on a number
of factors including the temperature of the base and speed at which
the product freezes, making smooth, light ice cream a challenge to
produce at home without special equipment.
Premium brands and homemade ice creams exceed the regulated fat
thresholds, making them richer and more indulgent. There are two
distinct styles of ice cream: 'Philadelphia-style', which contains
no eggs, and frozen custard, which does include egg. The egg acts
in two ways: the fat enriches the mixture and the natural
emulsifiers found in the yolks help make it smoother. Most
commercial ice cream is Philadelphia-style but contains other
emulsifiers. Until recently, the overwhelming majority of homemade
ice cream recipes were frozen custard because they turn out less
icy due to the thickening and emulsifying characteristics of the
eggs. Then Jeni Britton Bauer released her groundbreaking
book Jeni's Splendid
Ice Creams at Home. Jeni feels that
eggs mask the flavor of other ingredients, so instead of
thickening her ice cream with egg yolks, she reduces the cream by
boiling it and adds cornstarch to thicken it. A touch of cream
cheese also enhances the texture of her ice creams.
In Hello My
Name is Ice Cream, Dana Cree digs even deeper into the
science of ice cream, demystifying emulsifiers. She thinks that
many of them have an undeserved negative reputation. In a recent
interview, she put it this way: "There's a lot of things
at home that we don't know how to manufacture - there's no way for
us to get corn starch out of corn, but somehow that's a completely
natural product. Locust bean gum is a weird thing that holds stuff
together, but carob chips, if you're super-healthy and you don't
want to eat chocolate, but make chocolate chip cookies, well,
they're the same plant. So why does one have a perception that it's
healthy, and one has the perception that it's a weird chemical?" In
her book, she provides several options for home cooks to use,
ranging from xanthan gum to glucose to cornstarch.
At the end of the richness scale, we finally arrive at gelato,
the Italian frozen dessert that closely resembles ice cream.
However, several criteria distinguish the two. Gelato contains less
milkfat than ice cream (6 to 7% vs. 10-15%), and it does not have
as much air churned into it, making it denser. As with most foods
in Italy, each region has its own interpretation of the treat. In
the south, particularly in Sicily, milk or fresh cheese forms the
base, and vegetable starch rather than egg thickens the product. In
central Italy, the base is custard made with milk and eggs. In the
north, cream enriches the custard. Italian gelato vendors serve
their product at a warmer temperature (20 to 25°F) than normally
used for ice cream (~10° F). This makes the flavor more intense
because your taste buds are more receptive than when they are numb
from the cold. To mimic this at home, place your gelato into the
refrigerator about 20 minutes prior to serving it.
Now that you know all of the similarities and differences
between sorbet, sherbet, ice cream, and gelato, the only thing that
is left is for you to search the EYB Library for the perfect
recipe.
Photo of Pistachio
gelato from Saveur Magazine