Gelato and ice cream are surprisingly different, here are a couple points.
At first sight, ice cream and gelato appear to be very similar. However, they both use different ingredients and churning processes, as a result, both frozen desserts are quite unique.
Ice Cream
Ice cream is a dairy dessert made from cream, milk, sugar and egg yolks. These ingredients are combined into a custard base to be frozen and churned at high speeds. This rapid churning adds a lot of air into the freezing cream which results in an airer texture. While ice cream uses a lot of cream and preservatives/artificial flavours, ice cream is not surprisingly much higher in fat content than gelato.
- Mostly made of cream
- Includes egg yolks
- 10 -18 percent fat
- Around 50 per cent air
- Served Frozen, -20 Celsius
Gelato
The word Gelato, is Italian for ice cream. Gelato offers less calories, sugar and fat per serving than ice cream. Unlike ice cream which uses a lot of fatty cream, gelato uses whole milk and is churned at a much slower speed. This adds less air into the freezing mix leaving a much denser and elastic texture. Gelato is made and served at -13 Celsius which is a little warmer than ice cream, creating a silkier and smoother texture. Because it has a lower percentage of fat than ice cream, the main flavor ingredient really shines through.
- Mostly made of whole milk
- Less fat
- Allergy free & dairy free options, such as sorbet
- No artificial flavours or colours
- Served at -13 Celsius for smoother texture
The Scoop
There are main differences in temperature and fat which affects how we taste. When we are consuming food with fat content such as ice cream, the fat actually creates a layer over our tongue between the food and our taste buds. This layer combined with the extremely cold temperature ice cream is served in makes it difficult for us to taste flavors. The human palate cannot taste foods that are very cold such as the 0 Celsius temperature ice cream is stored in. While gelato is stored at -9 degrees and has less fat than ice cream, gelato flavours are much more intense and savoury.
