I thought emulsifiers and stabilizers were bad. It took a patient food scientist to explain those are functions NOT additives.

 

This week I snagged an invitation to Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream’s Chemistry & Chocolate meeting. Several ice cream artisans from around the Puget Sound (Seattle, Enumclaw, Port Townsend) were there. Many of whom gourmands line up out their doors for high quality ice cream, sorbets, custards and gelatos.

 

Rex Infanger took the group through the chemical and biological route proteins and fats go through to dish up frozen treats. The “Legos of ice cream,” he calls it. To make excellent ice cream you need to make an emulsion. “Emulsifiers allow opposite things to hold together, like mayonnaise. All that is, is oil and water in suspension. In ice cream its water and protein that need to be suspended.”

 

And he described stabilizers, mainly food gums, as helping to control water and air bubbles to craft a better product that controls melting, reduces ice crystals forming and improves mouth feel. “Without stabilizers ice cream melts quickly,” he said. “They are only 0.2 to 0.4 percent of the product and contribute so much.”

 

All this talk got the group hungry. Bakery Nouveau supplied Euro-style morning pastries to pair with Caffe Appassionato coffee. Here was another revelation – William Leaman of the West Seattle bakery has lured Pastry Chef Jane Gibson from Salty’s on Alki. Jane leaves the Salty’s pastry kitchen in the hands of her son James Gibson.