PADA STAR TRAINING Gelato Gelato or Ice Cream: What's the Difference ?
Gelato or Ice Cream: What's the Difference ?

After "what's your favorite ice cream?", the question I get asked the most as an ice cream maker is "what makes gelato different from ice cream?" How does gelato get that soft, elastic texture and slow-to-melt milkiness compared to ice cream's richer, creamier body?

After "what's your favorite ice cream?", the question I get asked the most as an ice cream maker is "what makes gelato different from ice cream?" How does gelato get that soft, elastic texture and slow-to-melt milkiness compared to ice cream's richer, creamier body?

It comes down to three factors: fat, air, and serving temperature. The more complicated answer? Things aren't always clear cut: this is food, not phylogeny, so individual recipes can blur the lines between the two. But there are some basic differences to keep in mind.

All ice cream is mostly water, and as water freezes, it forms hard, crunchy ice crystals. Besides great flavor, the ultimate goal of ice cream making is to keep those crystals as small as possible through added ingredients and technique. Here's how ice cream makers fight crystallization:

Emulsifying fat into a base (or using already emulsified ingredients, like cream and milk) sticks fat molecules in between water molecules, literally getting in the way of ice as it freezes.

Sugar also forms a physical barrier to crystallization, just like fat. When dissolved in water, it forms a syrup with a lower freezing point than plain water, and the sweeter a syrup is (i.e. the higher the concentration of sugar), the lower the freezing point becomes. As water starts to freeze in a syrup, the unfrozen water becomes, in effect, a more concentrated syrup. This process continues until you have a bunch of small ice crystals in a sea of syrup so concentrated that it'll never really freeze.

Air is incorporated into ice cream during the churning process. Just like a light, fluffy angel food cake is easier to cut into than a dense fruit cake, a more aerated ice cream is easier to scoop, and has a fluffier, less dense texture.

The temperature ice cream is stored at also has an obvious effect: colder ice creams are harder and more solid, while warmer ones are softer, with a looser texture.

There are some other tricks to keep ice cream soft, such as alcohol, starch, protein (in egg and milk), and natural stabilizers like guar gum and carageenan, but the top four above are the big factors at play.

Compared to today's American-style ice cream (that's one made with egg yolks, as is basically the new standard in home recipes and commercial products), gelato has less fat in the base and less air churned into it during the freezing process. American ice creams are heavy on the cream, and have a fat content, by American labeling law, of at least 10% (considerably higher in most homemade and many premium versions). Gelato, by comparison, uses more milk than cream, so it doesn't have nearly as much fat. Additionally, it usually—but not always—uses fewer (to the point of none) egg yolks, another source of fat in custard-based ice creams.

American-style ice creams are churned fast and hard to whip in plenty of air (called overrun), which is aided by the high proportion of cream in the base. The most high-end ice creams have an overrun of 25% or so, which means they've increased in volume by 25%; cheaper commercial versions can run from 50% to over 90%, which gives them a light, thin, fast-melting texture that isn't very flavorful (those bites are a quarter to a half air!). Gelato is churned at a much slower speed, which introduces less air into the base—think whipping cream by hand instead of with a stand mixer. That's why it tastes more dense than ice cream—it is.

And what about sugar? Well, sugar levels vary wildly in ice cream and gelato recipes, so there's less of a hard difference there.

If you make ice cream at home, you may be wondering about your ice cream machine: does it churn at ice cream speed or gelato speed? The truth is, most of the consumer models on the market churn at about the same speed, none of which are as fast as the commercial machines used to make American-style ice cream. But you can make both ice cream and gelato in your machine—remember, air is only one of the differences between them.

All these differences give gelato a more dense and milky texture that's less creamy than ice cream. It's not thin, but it lacks the plush, buttery fullness of its American cousin. Some say that gelato has a more intense flavor than ice cream, since it has less of the tongue-coating cold fat that gets in the way of tasting things. But I think it's more accurate to say that gelato's flavors come through direct, hard, and fast, then melt away clean. A good, flavorful ice cream can have just as intense a flavor, but you'll taste it differently. One isn't necessarily more flavorful than the other.

So if gelato has less fat than ice cream, and less air pumped into it, why is it not as hard as a brick? How does it get that super-soft, almost elastic texture that looks like a swirl of frosting more than a scoop of ice cream? It's the last big factor: temperature. Ice cream is best served at around 10°F; gelato cases are set to a warmer temperature. If you freeze gelato really cold, it'll turn right into the dense, relatively-low-fat brick it has the potential to be. But when warm, it's that perfect soft-but-not-soupy consistency. If you stored ice cream at a much warmer temperature, it'd get too soupy: the high fat in water emulsion would melt too fast.

I've been following the common naming convention in this post, calling American-style ice cream "ice cream" and Italian-style "gelato." But here's the thing: gelato's just the Italian word for ice cream. Though it does stick to the tendencies I've pointed out above, individual recipes do vary. Some call for cornstarch, others for egg yolks; some use higher amounts of sugar and others use less.

But it's all ice cream, just how soft serve is just warmer, freshly churned ice cream, and frozen yogurt is just soft serve made with yogurt as the dairy base. Sure, we can quibble over names and definitions, but at the end of the day, it's all one happy frozen, creamy family. We can argue about differences, or we can sit down and dig in to a pint together? I know which I'd rather do.

Tags Best Gelato, cream, Florence, Gelato, Ice cream, Italian, Italy, Melbourne, Milan, Rome, Venice, Yogurt, PADA STAR


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Best Gelato Shops in Italy
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How to Setup Gelato Shop
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History Of Ice Cream In Italy
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The History of Latte Art
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Best Gelato Shops in Florence
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The History of Bakery
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Our Partners in the world
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Top 10 Gelato in Turin Italia

Find and buy Italian gelato and soft ingredients and machines or coffee bean and coffee machines by online: convenient, quick!

Soft Base or Gelato bases, ice cream additives, Flavor Pastes, Topping for your shops, restaurants, factories that we have supplied in Vietnam now. Besides, you can find coffee beans, coffee machines, coffe grinders for coffee shops, coffee projects in Vietnam that you will be so happy with Italian products. GELATO KING is an interesting shopping place, easy to find and easy to buy! You can buy them at home, at work, and with Google searches to buy the best products. You will find the product to buy quickly and easily using the diverse online shopping platform. Review the web, read the information, see the product you need to buy and then send Email, Call, or click on the item in the product details to orders. All orders will be processed quickly as possible, prepay and receive goods after fun!

The slogan of development is "Simply is quality"!

With the aim of providing the best and best things for ice cream, soft drinks, coffee, pizza, we create a channel to sell delicious ice cream ingredients, best ice cream powders, best ice cream machines.

Discover new products from world's famous brands of ice cream powders, ice cream machines, coffee machines, coffee beans such as Rubicone, Innova, Fama, Techfrost, Cofrimell, Gelatec, Camardo, Adler, Framec , Tecmach, Promac, Fracino, Smach and many other brands. GELATO KING is to introduce and distribute products specializing in fresh ice cream, gelato ice cream, coffee machine, soft drinks that people can search, review, comment on gelato, ice cream, smoothie, yogurt,  blending, beverage and milkshake for restaurants, cafeteria, cafe, bar. GELATO KING only focuses on high-class products, imported from Italy, Greece, England, USA ... products aimed at high-end market, long-term investment ...

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Find and buy Italian gelato and soft ingredients and machines or coffee bean and coffee machines by online: convenient, quick!

Soft Base or Gelato bases, ice cream additives, Flavor Pastes, Topping for your shops, restaurants, factories that we have supplied in Vietnam now. Besides, you can find coffee beans, coffee machines, coffe grinders for coffee shops, coffee projects in Vietnam that you will be so happy with Italian products. GELATO KING is an interesting shopping place, easy to find and easy to buy! You can buy them at home, at work, and with Google searches to buy the best products. You will find the product to buy quickly and easily using the diverse online shopping platform. Review the web, read the information, see the product you need to buy and then send Email, Call, or click on the item in the product details to orders. All orders will be processed quickly as possible, prepay and receive goods after fun!

The slogan of development is "Simply is quality"!

With the aim of providing the best and best things for ice cream, soft drinks, coffee, pizza, we create a channel to sell delicious ice cream ingredients, best ice cream powders, best ice cream machines.

Discover new products from world's famous brands of ice cream powders, ice cream machines, coffee machines, coffee beans such as Rubicone, Innova, Fama, Techfrost, Cofrimell, Gelatec, Camardo, Adler, Framec , Tecmach, Promac, Fracino, Smach and many other brands. GELATO KING is to introduce and distribute products specializing in fresh ice cream, gelato ice cream, coffee machine, soft drinks that people can search, review, comment on gelato, ice cream, smoothie, yogurt,  blending, beverage and milkshake for restaurants, cafeteria, cafe, bar. GELATO KING only focuses on high-class products, imported from Italy, Greece, England, USA ... products aimed at high-end market, long-term investment ...

GELATO KING: sharing experience through many sales channels of the system.

Forget the poor quality products, think of clean products, clear origins, good for your health.

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