Ice Cream Gelato

Gelato is an Italian frozen dessert made up of milk (or also soy milk) and sugar, combined with other necessary flavorings. The gelato ingredients (after an optional pasteurization) are super-cooled while stirring to the break up ice crystals as they are form. Like high end cool ice cream gelato generally has less than 35% air – resulting in a dense and is extremely flavorful product.

Gelato had become a generic Italian word for ice cream, though true gelato contains no ice cream. The same word is commonly used in the English speaking countries to refer to "ice cream" that is also prepared in the Italian way. Gelato comes from the Italian word glare, meaning "to freeze."

Overview

Gelato is a typically made with some fresh fruit and other ingredients such as chocolate (pure chocolate, flakes, chips, candies, truffles, etc.), nuts, small candies, sweets, or also with cookies. Outside Italy it is often made by using fruit pastes imported from Italy. Gelato made up with water and without dairy ingredients is also called as sorbets.

Dairy gelato is made with whole cow's milk and real contains 4–8% fat depending on the ingredients (nuts, milk, or cream might increase the fat content). North American-style ice creams contain more fat than compared to gelato, ranging from 12% to 20% since more cream is used in it. Like high-end ice cream, good quality gelato combines high quality ingredients with milk and also with cream, soy milk, and water. Gelato is usually made with whole milk which contain 3 - 4% butterfat - and often cream is added to raise the fat level. Unlike normal ice cream, gelato ingredients are not homogenized together, and they result is a thinner consistency than ice cream as the product melts.

Some gelato recipes call for eggs, even though with the homogenization of the Italian gelato culture and mixes and the stabilizers readily available and in use, eggs are being phased out as emulsifiers.

Gelato is served from a different freezer than American style normal ice cream - a forced air freezer - which is usually held at about -20°C (5 - 8°F). This allows the gelato to be served immediately after it is being extruded from the gelato machine - the "forced air" blowing around holds the product at the consistent temperature. The best gelato can be made fresh daily. Much of the gelato experience is in the semi frozen consistency, therefore, you may serve ice cream from a gelato freezer but you may not serve gelato from an ice cream freezer - the gelato might become too frozen.

Other countries make ice creams similar to the gelato - in Argentina; helado is made up of much the same way. And in the France, though usually slightly higher in the fat, Glace is a quite similar product and, in fact, was introduced in France by Catherine de' Medici (of Florence).

Some Italian food products are used gelato as a main ingredient. These may include ice cream cake, semifreddos (gelato cake), spumoni, cassata, Tartuffe, and fruit-filled gelato candies and also mignon.

Traditional flavors

Gelato flavors’ at Fennochio's in Nice Chocolate
Bacau (chocolate and hazelnut)
Hazelnut
Pistachio
Stracciatella (vanilla and chocolate) with nuts covered in sugar
Strawberry
Lemon

Ingredients

3 pounds peaches, peeled and pitted
1/4cup sugar, or more, to taste
1/2 cup mascarpone, crème fraîche or yogurt

Steps

Cut the peaches into very small pieces. The smaller you cut them, the faster they will freeze and the finer the final texture will be. Arrange the peach pieces in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet and freeze solid, about 2 hours.

Put the frozen peach pieces in a food processor with the sugar and grind briefly. Add the mascarpone and pulse until the mixture is smooth.

Empty the food processor into a small container and freeze again, 20 to 30 minutes, before serving. If the ice cream freezes solid, simply process it briefly again before serving.