The importance of sugar in ice cream

Sucrose

Sucrose is table sugar. Granulated, caster, icing and brown sugar are all Sucrose. It’s the most familiar sugar and is available everywhere.

And in terms of sweetness and freezing point depression, it’s the base against which other sugars are measured.

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Dextrose

Dextrose is ¾ as sweet as Sucrose but lowers the freezing point of water by almost twice as much. So by replacing some Sucrose with Dextrose, we can make our ice creams less sweet and more soft.

It’s often available in pharmacists, home brew shops and the baking isles of supermarkets. Dextrose is also known as Glucose.

Fructose

Fructose lowers the freezing point of water to the same degree as Dextrose. But it’s really sweet: much sweeter than Sucrose. For this reason, I find it’s less useful in homemade ice cream.

Maltodextrin

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Maltodextrin is not very sweet and doesn’t have too much effect on the freezing point of water. It’s often used to bulk up mixtures that are otherwise low on solids.

So it’s ideal in sorbets made with watery fruit (such as watermelon), where if we made up the solids with other sugars, they would be too sweet. It’s also useful in savory ice creams.

Invert Sugar

Invert sugar is a syrup widely used in professional cooking. It’s sweeter than Sucrose and depresses the freezing point of water to the same degree as Dextrose.

It has a significant effect on the texture of ice cream, adding body and reducing ice crystals.

Chefs buy it pre-prepared in big tubs from brands like Trimoline. But we can easily make it at home.

Karo Light Corn Syrup

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Karo Light Corn Syrup behaves in a similar way to Invert Sugar. However, it’s significantly less sweet. It’s also much easier to get your hands on than Invert Sugar in the US! However, it does have a slightly metallic taste, so it needs to be used in moderation with lighter flavors.

Honey

Honey is acts like a flavored invert sugar. Because basically, that’s what it is! It’s very sweet and often strongly flavored, so we need to be careful how much we use. But it’s fun to experiment with different types and flavors of honey in ice cream.

Getting the proportions right

Using combinations of different sugars allows us to take complete control of the sweetness, body and softness of our ice creams. My ice cream calculator can help here.

Ice cream usually contains between 14 and 24% sugar by weight. Be careful with sugars that lower the freezing point of water more than Sucrose though, as if you use too much, your ice creams won’t freeze properly!

Below is a collection of the sugar combinations that I’ve come across in various books and websites. I’ll keep adding to these as I find them. I think they can act as a useful guide!

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