Gelato (Italian pronunciation: [dʒeˈlaːto]; plural: gelati) is the italian word for ice cream and sorbet. Italians use the word gelato to mean a sweet treat that is served frozen. Indeed, gelato, just like ice cream, is made with Milk, cream, various sugars, flavoring including fresh fruit and nut purees.
The ambiguity about the use of the word gelato happens with the spread of many gelaterie (store where gelato is made). It is correct to say that most gelato is different from the traditional recipe of ice cream because it is lighter having a lower butterfat content than traditional, factory made ice cream. The home made Gelato typically contains 4–8% butterfat, versus 14% for ice cream in the United States. Depending on recipes and the artisan making it, dairy based gelato contains 16–24% sugar. Most ice cream in the United States contains 12 to 16% sugar. The sugar content in home made gelato just like in traditional ice cream, is precisely balanced with the water content to act as an anti-freeze to prevent it from freezing solid. Types of sugar used include sucrose, dextrose, and invert sugar to control apparent sweetness. Typically, gelato like any other ice cream need a stabilizing base. Egg yolks are used in yellow custard-based gelato flavors, including zabaione and creme caramel. Non-fat milk solids are also added to gelato to stabilize the base.
Making gelato is essentially the same thing as making home made ice cream. The mixture for gelato is typically prepared using a hot process first, where the sugars need to dissolve. White base is heated to 85 °C (185 °F) completing a pasteurization program. The hot process to make chocolate home made gelato is essentially the same for conventional ice cream, and depending on recipes, it is meant to be traditionally flavored with cocoa powder and cocoa butter.
Yellow custard base, which contains egg yolks, is heated to 65 °C (149 °F). It is recommended that the gelato mix age for several hours after pasteurization is complete for the milk proteins to hydrate, or bind, with water in the mix. This hydration reduces the size of the ice crystals, making a smoother texture in the final product. A non-traditional cold mix process is popular among some gelato makers in the United States and in the world.
Unlike most commercial ice creams in the world, from a process point of view, the home made gelato is frozen very quickly in individual small batches while the conventional factory made ice cream is frozen with a continuous assembly line freezer. This is the main difference between conventional ice cream and the home made one, called gelato. Churning during the freezing process incorporates air into the mix making it lighter. The added air is called overrun. Unlike commercial ice cream made in factories, which contains up to 100% overrun, the overrun in home made gelato is low, generally 20–35%. The gelato lower overrun results in a more expensive product per liter for the producer. This creates a denser product and with more intense flavors.
Like conventional ice cream with a higher fat content, gelato can be stored in a freezer for months. Some suggest that artisan gelato holds its peak flavor and smooth texture only for several days, and only when stored carefully at consistent, low temperatures.
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The history of gelato dates back to frozen desserts served in ancient Rome and Egypt made from ice and snow brought down from mountaintops and preserved below ground. Later, frozen desserts appeared during banquets at the Medici court in Florence. In fact, the Florentine cook Bernardo Buontalenti is said to have invented modern ice cream in 1565, as he presented his recipe and his innovative refrigerating techniques to Catherine de' Medici. She in turn brought the novelty to France, where in 1686 the Sicilian fisherman Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli perfected the first ice cream machine.[1] The popularity of gelato among larger shares of the population however only increased in the 1920s–1930s in the northern Italian city of Varese, where the first mobile gelato cart was developed. Italy is the only country in the world where the market share of handmade gelato versus industrial one is over 55%. [2] Nowadays over 5.000 italian gelaterie all over the world occupy more than 15.000 gelatai.[3]
Gelato is typically flavored with fresh fruit purees, cocoa and/or nut pastes. If other ingredients such as chocolate flakes, nuts, small confections, cookies, or biscuits are added, they are added after the gelato is frozen. Gelato made with fresh fruit, sugar, and water and without dairy ingredients is sorbet. Use of the word sorbetto is a common affectation in the United States.