Dairy Foods: Scooping Up Success

The origins of ice cream-like treats have been traced back to ancient Persia as far back as 550 BC, according to various sources. The Persians ingeniously utilized ice houses and ice pools to master the craft of producing and serving delectable delights such as faloodeh and sorbets.

Experts note that from ice cream’s simple ingredients of milk, heavy cream, sweeteners and inclusions like fruits and nuts, ice cream producers are creating a vast array of flavors, textures and formats.

Regina Draper, director of R&D for dairy and dairy alternatives at Wayzata, Minn.-based Cargill, suggests that creating balance, maintaining an indulgent taste and texture, and improving nutrition will foster innovation in ice cream.

“With the ingredients available today, we can create something that tastes really good and still feels indulgent but has a little less fat and a little less added sugar,” Draper explains. “It’s a dessert experience that satisfies the senses and staves off the guilt.”

While the ice cream world and the available levels of flavors, textures and carriers has ebbed and flowed through the years, Kami R. Smith, director of culinary showcasing at Pecan Deluxe Candy Co., Dallas, notes that the company is finding new ways to build ice cream, mix it, increase or decrease the percentage of inclusions, and lean in to the carb healthy, low sugars, low-fat worlds that still please the tongue.

“What was once the standard chocolate chip ice cream has now become the French style vanilla base with the respectfully sourced vanilla beans, high quality dark chocolate chunks with no additives or unnatural flavorings — it’s going back to a pure state,” Smith notes. “Pistachio ice cream is now made with fresh roasted pistachios, not just colors and flavors, mango sorbets are locally U.S. sourced ripe mangos and churned with local cane sugar for the most smooth, purest experience who can have.

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