What is ice cream?

The word "ice cream" stems from the Renaissance times when court chefs introduced cream into the sweet ice-based desserts. These sort of edible ices were originally called "Cream Ice". Over the intervening centuries, this changed into "Ice Cream" as the most popular recipe description. This is why "ice cream" is very often (confusingly) used as the generic term for all "edible ices".

Although ice cream is made from a few simple ingredients like milk, sugar, cream, vegetable fat and flavours, it also has a very complex structure made up of ice crystals and air bubbles in a thick matrix. These govern the characteristics of ice cream such as whether it is creamy or icy or how quickly it melts. The key to really pleasurable, creamy ice cream is to have a fine structure with small fat droplets, ice crystals and air bubbles.

The key to really pleasurable, creamy ice cream is to have a fine structure with small fat droplets, ice crystals and air bubbles.


More historical background can be found in the history of ice cream.
More details on definition of ice cream can be found in the EUROGLACES Code for Edible Ices.
More information on how ice cream is made can be found in How is ice cream made?