By soft I mean still scoopable and not rock hard.
In: 515
Ice cream is basically a frozen very fine foam. The foam form remains as long as it stays frozen, and it stays relatively soft because the ice cream is mostly air and the frozen bits are broken up by an enormous number of tiny air bubbles.
The reason ice is hard, is that each water molecule is attached to it’s neighbor in a crystal.
If we have lots of separate small crystals, it will be soft. Each individual price is hard, but as a whole it’s moldable and soft, like a bean bag chair. Or in the case of water, a pile of snow.
Ice cream isn’t one big crystal, like an ice cube. This is what happens if you cool water slowly. Ice cream was cooled so fast that it’s actually countless very tiny crystals. This allows it to be softer and smoother.
Ice cream is really ice crystals surrounded by a syrup which doesn’t freeze. If you were to make ice cream with artificial sweeteners instead of sugar, you would discover it freezes solid.
Good quality artisinal ice cream is usually very hard (but not crystally!) so you have to get it out of the freezer half an hour before, when you are getting a scoop at a shop the temperatures aren’t as low as your freezer so the consistency is correct.
Latest Answers