I bet you all have tasted Ice Creams. These Cold, sticky, melty, drippy, sugar blobs are the sweetest sights of summertime. While it's tempting to slap an ice cream label on all of it, there are some of the unique scoopable desserts in this camp also.
Sorbet? Gelato? Frozen custard? Sherbet? These aren't synonyms. It's time to talk about these stuffs.
Ice cream
In the United States, there is a legal definition of ice cream. No kidding. The USDA requires ice cream to contain at least 10 percent. It also must get churned while freezing (as opposed to just sitting in a still bucket in the freezer overnight) and must be no more than 50 percent air. Wait, air? Yes, the more air churned into the ice cream base while freezing, the lighter and fluffier the result. Too much air, and, well, you get...not much of the good stuff.
Pretty much anywhere on Earth you can get the Ice Creams. Oh, but if you're looking for the ice cream shop with the most flavors, set a course for HeladeríaCoromoto in Venezuela. They have some of the best Ice Creams in he world.
Gelato
As rumor has it, the Italian word for ice cream is gelato, but that's a bit misleading. Gelato differs from ice cream in that it has very little air whipped into it while churning, which results in a very dense end result. In Italy, as Thrillist reports, gelato is traditionally made with whole milk and without added cream, which puts the milkfat.
Where to get it?
Italy, baby. beware of what you're buying in the freezer aisle. The low milkfat and lack of hardening make true gelato a tough keep on store shelves, so you may just be buying a carton full of marketing jargon.
Frozen custard
Known to some as French ice cream, frozen custard is very similar ice cream in a number of ways. The key differentiator, however, is that it must be at least 1.4 percent egg yolk. In addition to its eggy base, frozen custard is also typically only about 15-30 percent air, making it thicker and smoother than ice cream.
While an early version of the stuff is said to have come from Coney Island, the frozen custard capital of the world is Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thank the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago for making frozen custard a Midwestern staple.
Frozen yogurt
Fro-yo differs from ice cream because, instead of milk or cream as the main dairy ingredient, this stuff uses — wait for it — yogurt. But this isn't the kind of yogurt currently sitting in your fridge. Frozen yogurt uses cultured milk (using bacteria such as Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, which may or may not be live), but the probiotics do not survive the freezing process.
Frozen yogurt originated in the U.S., and isn't hard to find thanks to the recent froyo gold rush. Rumor has it that the vanilla ice cream cone at McDonald's is frozen yogurt. Wrong. It's reduced fat ice cream.
Don’t have milk??
Sherbet
This stuff is fruit-based. Or famously rainbow-based. You may also see it labeled as sorbetto, not to be confused with sorbet. We know.
On his return trip to Italy, Marco Polo brought with him an ice cream recipe that was actually closer to sherbet. While, sure, you can travel to the boot for a sherbet, the stuff in your grocery store's freezer section will suffice for a suitable palette-cleanser.
Sorbet
Here's an easy one: sorbet is simply fruit and sugar. No dairy here. Restaurants may sometimes use sorbet between courses to cleanse the palette. Also, sorbet is slow-churned, so it's smooth and scoopable like ice cream.
Sorbet is one of the earliest known desserts, dating back to the 7th century B.C.E. in China. No reason to make special travel plans to try it, this stuff is super easy to make at home yourself. Try it.
We know what you've been thinking this whole time: Okay, so which one should I eat? Let's start with the bad news: There is no option here that we'd feel particularly comfortable labeling as healthy. The reason is that they're all loaded with sugar, so goes the nature of desserts. Another reason is, it's not quite a fair swap given the density of the different variations. Basically, the comparison all comes down to your taste preferences. And now for the good news: No matter which you choose, it'll likely be delicious.
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