Ice Cream in Scotland

[abax]

Dot, I saw lots of stuff on the carton of chocolate Haagen Dazs, but no list of ingredients. You're probably too young
to remember Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead. I spotted the B&J Cherry Garcia Fro Yo and fell for the name. After eating some, I fell for the taste and forgot
my guar principles.

Don, you're quite right. Haagen doesn't do well in the
freezer in the long haul. It does give one an incentive to
eat it quickly though.

I understand Emma's relationship with her herd very well. It's their response to the music that amused and
touched me. I wish I had a link to that vid.

 

[Achamore]

Haagen-Dazs are the only major manufacturer to avoid those gums. People in the industry study them, as they are impressive, and not easy to imitate. They have a very high fat content, combined with the lack of air, and make a very dense ice cream.

But as I said, we tried using no gums, and the result was not something one could sell to shops. By the way, the gums we use are not "artificial", they are not synthesized from chemicals in a lab. Do you like Carob? That is the plant that provides Locust Bean Gum Powder. Xanthum Gum Powder is sold in the UK by one of the major organic flour companies (Dove Farm) because people who wish to avoid gluten in their diet can use it in baking with gluten-free flour. If drying a plant part and crushing it renders it artificial, then wheat flour and all manner of other things we cook with must be considered artificial as well.

Nobody has commented on the Glyphotase that is now in all the non-organic sugar used in the USA... That would REALLY worry me. Who wants to eat something tainted with herbicides?

 

[SlipperFan]

Dot, I saw lots of stuff on the carton of chocolate Haagen Dazs, but no list of ingredients. You're probably too young
to remember Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead. I spotted the B&J Cherry Garcia Fro Yo and fell for the name. After eating some, I fell for the taste and forgot my guar principles.

I would guess I'm older than you...

Haagen-Dazs are the only major manufacturer to avoid those gums. People in the industry study them, as they are impressive, and not easy to imitate. They have a very high fat content, combined with the lack of air, and make a very dense ice cream.

But as I said, we tried using no gums, and the result was not something one could sell to shops. By the way, the gums we use are not "artificial", they are not synthesized from chemicals in a lab. Do you like Carob? That is the plant that provides Locust Bean Gum Powder. Xanthum Gum Powder is sold in the UK by one of the major organic flour companies (Dove Farm) because people who wish to avoid gluten in their diet can use it in baking with gluten-free flour. If drying a plant part and crushing it renders it artificial, then wheat flour and all manner of other things we cook with must be considered artificial as well.

Nobody has commented on the Glyphotase that is now in all the non-organic sugar used in the USA... That would REALLY worry me. Who wants to eat something tainted with herbicides?

My last comment was more about all the ice creams sold here than about you, Don. It was a little snarky! You are right -- I don't worry so much about those two gums, but there are some others, in addition to the artificial sugars and other artificial stuff that I try to avoid.

 

[abax]

Don, my guess is that just about everything we eat has
had herbicides sprayed on it at one time or another. I'm
exposed to Round Up constantly in our nursery because it's
the only way we can keep weeds from taking young trees
in the field. We do, however, mow constantly in the balk
rather than broad spray large fields and kill everything
in sight except the trees. We are one of the very few
tree nurseries that even take the time to mow and put
organic matter back in the soil. Laurel Nursery tries very
hard to preserve the integrity of the soil and the watershed. Totally organic is a dream we once had.

 

[Achamore]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to promote an all organic approach..! My wife's dairy farm is not organic, and that's because it would not have paid to convert in the past 10 years, nor would be likely to do so now. Its hard enough surviving as a small dairy farmer, so extra costs have to be avoided.

But spraying a herbicide at harvest time??? That just seems to me to be utterly crazy! If I lived in the US I would certainly buy organic sugar simply to avoid the extra dose of Glyphosate in my meals.

 

[NYEric]

It adds a special flavor!

 

[abax]

Organic sugar is not that easy to find in a small
town. We use a brown raw sugar that probably has more
raw chemicals than the granulated, processed white sugar.
We find beet sugar occasionally, but apparently it doesn't
sell well. If we were smart enough, we wouldn't eat any
sugar. Oh well...

 

[Achamore]

Beet Root sugar is probably as common in the UK as cane sugar. Silver Spoon is the brand, and they boast all their sugar is grown in the UK. If there is a difference in taste, I can't tell.

 

[Achamore]

I hesitated to post here about our ice cream production, because the recipes are intended for commercial type production, not the sort you would choose to do at home for family and friends. If one doesn't have any need to store the ice cream for months, then the gums would not be needed. And there are a lot of other tweaks that go out the window. No need for the vegetable glycerine, because you simply make sure you are serving the ice cream you made that day or yesterday, at the right temperature so it can scoop easily.

On the other hand, there are further things I was counselled to do on the pro ice cream making course I attended in February down in England, things which I chose to ignore. For example they recommend against using egg yolk as the emulsifier, simply because it makes more challenges. Use those mono & di glycerides instead - yuk..! Glucose syrup instead of normal granulated sugar, that was another recommendation. But I've kept as much to old-fashioned as seems possible, going down this small commercial production route.