Book on Ice Creams

[NickLam]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a pro book on Ice creams and over at Chips Books, the 2 that catch my eye are Les Recettes Glacees by L'Ecole Lenotre http://www.chipsbooks.com/recglace.htm#recglace and the one by Ryon Emmanuel http://www.chipsbooks.com/artglace.htm.

Basically, I'm looking for a book that'll teach how to make ice cream commercially. We just managed to get a huge German ice cream machine for free and are looking at how we can make add ice cream to our list of wholesale products.

We want a book that can show us about using different emulsifiers, preservatives, methods, etc...etc......

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Thanks!

Edited April 17, 2006 by NickLam (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a pro book on Ice creams and over at Chips Books, the 2 that catch my eye are Les Recettes Glacees by L'Ecole Lenotre http://www5.mimima.com/link.php?ref=tInK9YIx4k and the one by Ryon Emmanuel http://www.chipsbooks.com/artglace.htm.

Basically, I'm looking for a book that'll teach how to make ice cream commercially.  We just managed to get a huge German ice cream machine for free and are looking at how we can make add ice cream to our list of wholesale products.

We want a book that can show us about using different emulsifiers, preservatives, methods, etc...etc......

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Thanks!

←

I have quite a number of different ice cream books, each with their own interesting recipes but one that covers more about the details with emulsifiers, preservatives etc is Ice Cream: The Whole Scoop by Gail Damerow ISBN 0-944435-29-7.

Frozen Desserts by Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir ISBN 0-312-14343-5 is originally British and has some interesting variations.

I like the old Lenotre by Barron's Lentotre's Ice Creams and Candies ISBN 0-8120-5334-6 and finally I have found the original Ice Cream by Gar and Mable Hoffman ISBN 0-89586-040-6 that is an HP book and came with every old fashioned ice cream maker that was ever sold to be a really nice basic book, lots of good standard recipes. Kind of plain vanilla as far as books go, but basic.

I have a bunch of others as well, if you see one that interests you, and I have it, I can look through it and give you a good description.

[NickLam]

THanks for the info Kerry.

For the Gail Damerow book, how suited is it for commercial purposes? The machine I have does a minimum of 20 litres......or so thats what the chef we took it off told us. Ahahaha we are in over our heads on this one....but a free machine, used less than 10 times......we jumped at the opportunity to take it!

[nightscotsman]

I highly recommend the Ryon Emmanuel book, though I don't think they deal specifically with really large batch production issues.

[bibbotson]

I have the Lenôte Recettes Glacées book. It doesn't really touch on large batch production issues. Most of the book consists of recipes for entremets, vacherins, coupes, etc.

It seems very useful, however, for some of its discussions of hygenie, tables on the sweetness properties of different sweeteners, and formulas on how to balance ice cream and sorbet recipes.

As I haven't seen any other professional books on ice cream making, I can't comment on how these resources compare to similar books.

- Brian

[Kerry Beal]

THanks for the info Kerry.

For the Gail Damerow book, how suited is it for commercial purposes?  The machine I have does a minimum of 20 litres......or so thats what the chef we took it off told us.  Ahahaha we are in over our heads on this one....but a free machine, used less than 10 times......we jumped at the opportunity to take it!

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A free 20 litre machine!!! Can you see my envy, not that I have a freezer big enough to hold that sort of production.

The Gail Damerow book is still dealing in small quantities as far as the recipes go, but it does explain more about the theory of ice cream making than most books. It explores non dairy alternatives, emulsifyers and stabilizers, has a chapter on trouble shooting.

I've just been on www.abebooks.com and put in subject ice cream, keyword ice cream and went down from most expensive, I see one called Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts: A professional guide to Production and Marketing ISBn 0471153923, The Science of Ice cream ISBN 085404291, Handbook of Ice Cream Technology and Formulae no ISBN listed, and Standard Recipes for Ice Cream Makers by Val Miller, ISBN also not listed.

Perhaps someone has those books and could comment, they appear to be all large quantity technical books.

I thought I had one other book around here that deals in larger quantities, I'll keep searching. Have several thousand cookbooks, hard to keep track of them all.

[Woods]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a pro book on Ice creams and over at Chips Books, the 2 that catch my eye are Les Recettes Glacees by L'Ecole Lenotre http://www.chipsbooks.com/recglace.htm#recglace and the one by Ryon Emmanuel http://www.chipsbooks.com/artglace.htm.

Basically, I'm looking for a book that'll teach how to make ice cream commercially.  We just managed to get a huge German ice cream machine for free and are looking at how we can make add ice cream to our list of wholesale products.

We want a book that can show us about using different emulsifiers, preservatives, methods, etc...etc......

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

I have a book called Frozen Desserts, translated from French.  It doesn't have high volume production recicpes but is oriented toward professionals who use professional machines.  I found it at Jessica's Biscuit.  The authors are Alain Berne, Jacques Joubert and Joseph Aimar. 

Thanks!

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[NickLam]

Thanks for the info on the books and the links in Abebooks. I will definitely check them out.

Not sure bout ice cream recipes, but can I just use baker's percentages and increase the amounts of say.........a standard recipe from any book? Never made ice cream before...and heck, we don't even know how to operate the ice cream maker and the chef who used it has long since gone. The company is sending us an instructional booklet.

It used to be part of Marche's, which my friend's family used to run, and after that closed down, they used it in another Italian restaurant to put plates and hang towels on! Apparently, they weren't selling enough ice cream in the Italian restaurant to warrant large batches of production.

Ahahah so....we decided to relief them of their towel hanger for more productive purposes....if we ever figure the damned thing out

Nightscotsman,

Does does the Ryon Emmanuel book deal with emulsifiers and preservatives? And do the recipes include such ingredients inside?

Thanks!

[nightscotsman]

Nightscotsman,

Does does the Ryon Emmanuel book deal with emulsifiers and preservatives?  And do the recipes include such ingredients inside?

←

Yes and yes.

[NickLam]

Nightscotsman,

Does does the Ryon Emmanuel book deal with emulsifiers and preservatives?  And do the recipes include such ingredients inside?

←

Yes and yes.

←

Sold!

Thanks Nightscotsman and Kerry, I'll be getting both books!

[stscam]

Check out ICE CREAM AND FROZEN DESSERTS: A Commercial Guide to Production and Marketing, by Malcolm Stogo (Wiley, 1998). It's pricey, but it's got tons of really good information about setting up, running and producing for small and large ice cream operations. The recipes include ice cream (regular and super premium), sorbet, gelato and frozen yogurt. I've made a few of the gelatos and have been really happy with them. Recipes are given for Batch Freezers (10 qts) and Continuous (100 gallons). There are detailed chapters on ingredients, mixes, science, and so on.

Cheers,

Steve

[NickLam]

Check out ICE CREAM AND FROZEN DESSERTS: A Commercial Guide to Production and Marketing, by Malcolm Stogo (Wiley, 1998). It's pricey, but it's got tons of really good information about setting up, running and producing for small and large ice cream operations. The recipes include ice cream (regular and super premium), sorbet, gelato and frozen yogurt. I've made a few of the gelatos and have been really happy with them. Recipes are given for Batch Freezers (10 qts) and Continuous (100 gallons). There are detailed chapters on ingredients, mixes, science, and so on.

Cheers,

Steve

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I've been checking out this book and your summary for it is awesome. Thanks!

The price is good, much less than the Ryon Emmanuel one I intend to buy. Seems like this one fits my purposes better. Ahahaha now I'm tempted to buy everything!

[Lee Ratliff]

As far as "amateur" ice cream books go, the Damerow book is top-notch for those wanting more than just a recipe. Her book delves into the details of what makes good ice cream, the function and flavor of ingredients, how to improve your ice cream, and how to troubleshoot problems. The recipes are designed for home use and are not suitable for commercial use, though you might get some good ideas on flavor combinations, etc. Unlike 99% of ice cream authors, Damerow understands that texture, not flavor, is the difficult part to get right.

The Stogo book, Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts: A Commercial Guide to Production and Marketing, is also very good, but it's not a culinary book. It covers equipment, sanitation, ingredients, suppliers, marketing, business planning, and other topics. However, it does have 500 recipes that are designed and tested for commmercial use. The recipes make 10 quarts of mix for use in a 20 qt machine. (Author assumes 100% overrun, i.e. volume doubling due to air incorporation.) They are easily scalable for other size machines.

Another book with commercial recipes is Gelato & Gourmet Frozen Desserts: A Professional Learning Guide, by Lucianno Ferrari. In addition to gelato, the book has many sorbet and ice cream recipes. The book is only available from Carpigiani (www.carpigiani-usa.com).

Finally, the industry bible is Ice Cream, by Marshall, Goff, and Hartel. This is an academic book that covers (in excruciating detail) the science behind ice cream. I wouldn't consider it necessary for a small (batch) operation, but it is encyclopedic in its coverage of the subject.

Most ice cream ingredient vendors will be happy to provide many recipes using their ingredients.

Most book have only a cursory coverage of stabilzers and emulsifiers. If you make premium ice cream, it's easy to avoid their use altogether because the high level of fat and solids makes it unnecessary. Stabilizers are more important in low-fat and no-fat ice creams and sorbets. Your supplier can provide details on usage.

I'm not familiar with the CHIPS books that were mentioned, but I have all the books list above and many more. I'd be happy to provide more detail or e-mail the TOCs.

Lee

[Kieranm]

If you're serious about making ice cream commercially, the Penn State ice cream course is helpful although mostly geared to large scale production. Still, there is much that can be learned there.

If you're going commercial, I would suggest working with a stabiliser whatever kind of ice cream you're making. It helps with the shelf life.

There's lots of information out there, but what you really need to figure out is what your market is and what kind of ice cream you're going to be making. There's no point making superpremium ice cream if you plan on only charging a small amount for it. You'll never make it pay.

Anyway, once you have that figured out, you can start making small batches and figure out what you like best...

Gelato is possibly something to look into since you save a fortune on cream...

[David J.]

If you're serious about making ice cream commercially, the Penn State ice cream course is helpful although mostly geared to large scale production. Still, there is much that can be learned there.

I took the weekend "Ice Cream 101" at Penn State just this year. It was geared towards the mom and pop ice cream shop rather than the huge manufactures churing out thousands of gallons. The "Ice Cream Short Course" is a full week and caters to the professional in a large manufacturing plant with continuous freezers and the like. With a batch freezer of 20L you are in the small shop category (and I too envy your machine!).

The most unexpected thing I found was that they very strongly suggested that you use a commercial mix in your machine. As a hobbiest I was hopping for more recipies, but in a commercial business it made a lot of sense. If you try to create your own mixes you will end up becoming a dairy operation with all the attendant investment and trouble. It would be easy to loose sight of making ice cream entirely if you go down that road.

The course touched on the different types of mixes and why you might want to go with a "Premium" or other type, and it discussed the role of each of the ingredients so you could have an intelligent conversation with your mix supplier.

Basically every type of mix is available already (quality and style), so you can use them as a base and add your own flavorings or inclusions. I saw quite a bit of that in the demonstration day with many manufacturers showing off their machines.

[NickLam]

Lee, great recommendation on the Ice Cream book. Seems like the most comprehensive one of the lot, and the best thing is.....its affordable.

As for the ice cream course at Penn State......I saw that on TV once, but unfortunately.....that would mean sending someone from Bangkok to go attend it. Our staff don't have the english skills to effectively understand everything! Also.....$10 says once they get back here, they will leave us for a better paying company or hotel....as everyone's main dream is to work in the brand name hotels, where there are more bonuses and looser cost controls (Read: Easier to steal stuff and sell it outside!). Might be paranoid, but its happened before.

Not sure how much ice cream we are gonna sell, but as far as we know from the chefs and our suppliers we have spoken to, the majority of local producers use premixes and flavourings. Flavour is severely lacking IMO.

Maybe its just a pipe dream, but we wanna concentrate on only 2 flavours, vanilla and chocolate. Of course, using real chocolate that we currently use like Cacao Barry, callebaut, Sicao and Aalst (Sicao and Aalst from Singapore). Gonna blend them for flavour/cost benefits.

And for vanilla......how I long for REAL vanilla ice cream, with the custard base steeped overnight for maximum flavour and seeing tiny seeds in every scoop. I get incredulously low prices on AAA bourbon method taitian beans, straight from the farms from PNG, so thats an advantage we have over everyone else here.

Lots of work still has to be done in regards to costings and other finance thingies to sort out the profitability of it, but heck, ahahah we have a free machine. Its a Boku 863.....and its 40 litres....not 20 litres as I was told. http://www.boku-eismaschine.de/english/english.htm

You guys have been great with your recommendations. My fullest thanks to everyone.

Hope our plans don't freeze up on us.

[Kerry Beal]

.

As for the ice cream course at Penn State......I saw that on TV once, but unfortunately.....that would mean sending someone from Bangkok to go attend it.   Our staff don't have the english skills to effectively understand everything!   Also.....$10 says once they get back here, they will leave us for a better paying company or hotel....as everyone's main dream is to work in the brand name hotels, where there are more bonuses and looser cost controls (Read: Easier to steal stuff and sell it outside!).   Might be paranoid, but its happened before.

Perhaps what you need to do is ask some eGullitier with large volume ice cream experience to come over and teach you!! I'm sure there are folks out there who want to see Bangkok (and take home some vanilla beans).

edited for spelling of bangkok (interesting never noticed that appropriate spelling before)

Edited April 19, 2006 by Kerry Beal (log)

[NickLam]

.

As for the ice cream course at Penn State......I saw that on TV once, but unfortunately.....that would mean sending someone from Bangkok to go attend it.  Our staff don't have the english skills to effectively understand everything!  Also.....$10 says once they get back here, they will leave us for a better paying company or hotel....as everyone's main dream is to work in the brand name hotels, where there are more bonuses and looser cost controls (Read: Easier to steal stuff and sell it outside!).  Might be paranoid, but its happened before.

Perhaps what you need to do is ask some eGullitier with large volume ice cream experience to come over and teach you!! I'm sure there are folks out there who want to see Bangkok (and take home some vanilla beans).

edited for spelling of bangkok (interesting never noticed that appropriate spelling before)

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Ahahah yea, sounds like a great plan. Actually, I've always had this idea at the back of my head that in about 6 months, we will start requiring foreigners to come in and do shows to wow the people....and thought EG would be a great place to find people.

Getting Asian chefs isn't really as effective as a western chef, coz no one really associates western pastry with Asians! Ahaha can Americans do European accents well?

If any of you buy vanilla beans or saffron in bulk, let me know and I can refer you to a company who can sell direct to you from Australia. Not sure what the prices are coz they have fallen since I got out of the trade last year. I rem. the last price to a chinese company was USD$135 for a kilo of grade AAA beans. Not sure what prices you guys get over there in USA, but lemme know if anyone is interested and I'll hook you up, but you deal direct with them.

Cheers!

[David J.]

How much ice cream are you planning on producing in a day?

40L (10 gallons US) is not a huge batch size for a commercial operation, so you could probably scale up a recipie from one of the books. I favor "Ice Cream: The Whole Scoop", but I have also been thinking about purchasing the Gelato book.

It sounds as though you want to produce either a "Premium" or "Super Premium" custard based product. If you sell it quickly enough you won't need any fancy stabilizers since the eggs will supply it naturaly. The long named stabilizers are used mainly in lower fat content/lower price products.

In taking the class and making it at home I discovered that there really isn't all that much to producing great ice cream. If you start with top quality ingredients and follow the instructions with your freezer you will end up with a great product.

Most ice cream shops don't want to be creating their own custard base because they just don't have the staff or kitchen for it. That is why they purchase premade mixes. They just pour in the mix, add flavoring, and crank it out. If you want to distinguish yourself and have some fun doing it, I say go for it!

I don't think it would be worth your travel expenses to attend the "Ice Cream 101" course, and the full week long "Short Course" is going to be overkill.

Do you have any specific questions?

[NickLam]

David,

Thank you so much for the encouragement. And you are right in your observations on the path we intend to take.

The sad part about all this is re-educating the customers about what we are doing and teaching them to discern quality. The best ice cream they have there is Haagen Daaz and Ben and Jerry's, the latter of which I absolutely LOVE.

However, these cost an arm and a leg and come in such dastardly small portions. Well, these guys sell small portions for high profits that the high society only can afford. We wanna target different people, the rising middle class, with a high quality product off which we can make a reasonable but not large profit. Profits will come in volume, and thats our target.

Right now, its all about re-thinking our supply chain and how we can skip the value chain here and there as well as make use of our contacts to get cheaper supplies to get a cost advantage.

Who knows.....today we have 1 machine, maybe tomorrow, a whole factory

[David J.]

David,

Thank you so much for the encouragement.  And you are right in your observations on the path we intend to take.

The sad part about all this is re-educating the customers about what we are doing and teaching them to discern quality.  The best ice cream they have there is Haagen Daaz and Ben and Jerry's, the latter of which I absolutely LOVE.

However, these cost an arm and a leg and come in such dastardly small portions.  Well,  these guys sell small portions for high profits that the high society only can afford.  We wanna target different people, the rising middle class, with a high quality product off which we can make a reasonable but not large profit.  Profits will come in volume, and thats our target.

Right now, its all about re-thinking our supply chain and how we can skip the value chain here and there as well as make use of our contacts to get cheaper supplies to get a cost advantage.

Who knows.....today we have 1 machine, maybe tomorrow,  a whole factory 

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There is a reason for the small container size you find with your premium ice creams. The main enemy of ice cream is the freeze/thaw cycle. Each time the temperature of the product goes up, some of the tiny ice crystals melt and creates free water. When it freezes again the free water joins existing ice crystals to make them larger. So over time you go from many microscopic crystals to fewer larger ones and people start to notice the the product is icy.

The small size of the container ensures that it won't last long in the customer's freezer and will therefore undergo fewer cycles. The big benefit you can get selling your own ice cream direct to the consumer is that you won't have to worry about intermediate storage of your product. The companies that sell to the grocery stores will have their product sit on the shelf for weeks, and that means many cycles before the consumer even touches the container.

What that means to you as a consumer is that you should keep your ice cream in the back of your freezer and NOT in the door where it swings out into a warm room every time the door is opened. Also don't stock up many gallons in a frost free freezer as it cycles.

Haagen Daaz and Ben and Jerry's are both "Super Premium" products, and you would have a hard time convicing anyone that you were producing anything a whole lot better. The real problem you will have is the cost of producing a competetive product. The best ingredients cost the most. The low overun they use (overrun = air whipped in) means that you actually get more ice cream in that small container than you would get in a comparable size of the cheaper stuff. Air is the secret ingredient that ice cream makers are selling. Too much of that, though, and the customer can tell in the mouth feel as it melts. The big boys have a real advantage of scale over you so it is difficult to beat them on price. Most premium shops rely on other methods to add percieved value.

You are correct about the problem of educating the consumer. In the class I found that to a large degree the average consumer can't tell the difference between the middle to high end products. That is why the manufacturers can slip in whey and other ingredients to lower the cost without loosing customers.

Some ice cream shops take the tack of selling an ambiance where the perception is of greater quality. It may be very good ice cream, but it is the whole experience that the consumer is paying a premium for. One chain here uses the process of hand mixing the inclusions on a marble slab as a draw.

If you are concerned about cost you could consider mixes rather than cooking your own custard. If your area is anything like the USA you will find the complete range of mixes available, from the cheap ice-milk, to super premium custard bases. I am sure you could find one that would satisfy your quest for quality. From there it is a matter of keeping the quality up with your flavors and inclusions.

If I were to open a shop I think I would look seriously into Gelato just for the visual appeal. As a consumer I love the way it displays, and it offers an opportunity for the shop to garnish the gelato in the trays in very creative ways.