When summer in Denmark is warm, it can be felt in the stores where the sales of items such as watermelons, cold buttermilk soup, and ice cream break records. Particularly, ice cream is something that for many people is synonymous with summer, and there’s indeed nothing better than a cold ice cream on a hot summer day.
Ice cream is an old acquaintance. We have known sorbet for millennia; it was made with natural ice from the mountains in Southern Europe, mixed with honey and fruit compote. A salt/water cold mixture to make ice cream was discovered in Italy in the 16th century, where they produced and consumed a frozen ice cream made from milk, eggs, and sugar. This recipe made its way to Louis XIV’s court in Renaissance France.
Historically, ice cream must be attributed to Italy, but it was in France that the recipes were refined. In Escoffier’s kitchen around the year 1900, ice cream and small cakes were the conclusion of the dinner. The ice cream machine at that time was based on a cold mixture of 10 kilos of ice mixed with 1.5 kilos of sodium chloride and 250 g of potassium nitrate, likely resulting in a temperature below -20°C. The freezing machine was made of tin and was placed in a wooden container. In the tin freezing machine, you could place molds with dessert ice or manually operate the propeller with a double stirrer, so the ice didn’t stick to the sides.
Ice cream also came to Denmark around the time of the abolition of serfdom in the late 18th century. The ice was obtained from icehouses that had stored ice from the previous winter, a technique used since the monks came to Denmark in the Middle Ages.
A Danish recipe for ice cream made in such a tin ice cream machine from around the year 1900 states, with the prices of that time:
- 11/2 Pot Whole Milk at 15 øre: 23 øre
- 1 Vanilla Pod: 50 øre
- 1⁄2 Dozen Eggs: 60 øre
- Sugar: 10 øre
- 6 Pounds of Ice: 25 øre
- 2 Pounds of Spanish Salt: 16 øre
- Total: 184 øre
In 1914, the first real ice cream factory based on condensation freezing – similar to when the camping refrigerator runs on gas – appeared. The factory was named “American Ice Cream Freezer,” and it was the one that later became known as “Hellerup Ice.” About 10 years later – in 1927 – “Premier Ice” opened; a brand that still exists today. During the same period, smaller dairies in the country also began producing ice cream, and this was how “Frisko Cream Ice” emerged – today simply called “Frisko.”
However, we have to go all the way up to the 1940s before freezers for ordinary people came into use. In Denmark, freezers were common from 1950 – about 1965, after which home freezers for households became widespread. They were based on compressor technology.
Types of Ice
It’s been a long time since ice was synonymous with an old-fashioned ice cream cone with whipped ice cream, marshmallow fluff, and jam on top. Today, we have a large and versatile selection of different types of ice cream in the stores, and new flavors are constantly being introduced. More and more people are also trying to make their own ice cream, and sales of ice cream machines for private households are increasing. There are, as mentioned, many different types of ice cream, and the difference between them is not just in taste and content but also significantly in the production method. Here you can see a review of the different basic forms of ice cream that exist and how they were originally made:
Sorbet
Make a syrup of equal parts water and sugar. Add 25-50% of the desired fruit pulp to the syrup; optionally sieve out seeds and place the mixture in an ice cream machine. When ice formation begins, add the egg white and finish stirring in the ice cream machine. Without an ice cream machine, stir the stiffly beaten egg white into the half-frozen mixture and freeze thoroughly. Optionally blend it semi-frozen before serving, and you get a more creamy sorbet.
The ice is of course low in fat, but be aware that the sugar content in sorbet ice is often high.
Frozen Fruit
Made from fresh fruit with a stick/wooden skewer stuck through and then frozen. A classic is half a banana dipped in melted dark chocolate, which can optionally be sprinkled with colorful sprinkles before freezing. This is a low-calorie alternative to cream ice and is a hit with many children and adults.
Sherbet
Is a natural yogurt with fresh fruits added with sugar in slightly smaller amounts than in most fruit yogurts. Sherbet is frozen with egg white as in sorbet production. Buy a ready-made fruit yogurt – it usually contains sufficient amounts of sugar, so be sparing with sugar in the fresh fruits.
Granata
For one bottle of wine, use a syrup of 2 dl water and 200 g sugar. Freeze for 3-4 hours. Use a good red wine, white wine, or champagne. Serve it as an intermezzo between fish and meat. Optionally pour a little of the chosen wine over the granata just before serving for a stronger bouquet.
Parfait
One of the easiest cream ice creams to make is parfait, as it does not need to be thickened by heating or stirred in an ice cream machine. You can place the ice mold in the refrigerator before the cream is whipped into whipped cream. For the base recipe, whip ½ l whipping cream not too stiff. In another bowl, whisk 6 egg yolks with 75 g icing sugar and seeds of one vanilla pod, possibly with 6 crystals of salt to stabilize the eggs (as for Bearnaise). The whipped cream is gently folded into the egg mixture and into an ice mold or individual glasses, placed in the freezer. It tastes good if you grate 200 g of dark chocolate into the ice cream mixture, but there are hundreds of variants online.
Ice Cream
Ice made with ice cream is more low-fat than parfait since it is made with a base of cream/milk, egg yolks, and sugar, and has a firm consistency. Ice cream is best prepared in an ice cream machine, where the cream is frozen with slow stirring to avoid ice crystals; but you can also pour the cream into a mold and stir it at regular intervals during freezing.
Traditional ice cream must have a certain minimum of milk fat (≈ 20-25%), and this can be achieved by mixing whole milk (3.5%) and whipping cream (38%) in suitable proportions:
(whole milk (ml)*whole milk fat (3.5 g/100 g) + cream (ml)*cream fat (38 g/100 g)
/ (whole milk(ml)+cream(ml))
If you mix 100 ml whole milk (3.5%) with 100 ml whipping cream (38%) according to this formula, you get 200 ml with 20.75% milk fat; instead, if you mix 100 ml whole milk with 166 ml whipping cream, you get 266 ml with 25.03% milk fat.
For a good Danish ice cream, you can use, for example, 500 ml whipping cream, 500 ml whole milk, 8 egg yolks, and 100 g sugar. They are made into a thickened ice cream by whisking the 8 egg yolks (stabilized with 6 grains of salt) and 100 g sugar until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is white and fluffy. Bring the milk cream to a boil in a small saucepan and gradually pour it into the egg mixture while continuing to whisk. Heat through until the mixture thickens, but not over ≈78°C, as ice cream can split like a Bearnaise sauce. Cool the cream for 3-4 hours in the refrigerator before running it in the ice cream machine. One of my favorites is chopping 200 g walnuts, giving them a quick boil in the milk cream, straining them, and then folding them into the ice cream before cooling.
“Cream ice” is considered by many to be a “real” ice cream, but it must be homemade according to the above recipe for it to be true. A typical commercial vanilla ice cream is made from skimmed milk and also contains water, sugar, glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, coconut fat, whey powder, vanilla pod, stabilizers (guar gum, locust bean gum, tara gum, carrageenan), emulsifier (mono- and diglycerides of vegetable fatty acids), flavors, carrot concentrate, vanilla extract, safflower concentrate, lemon juice concentrate. This commercial ice cream is typically used for classic old-fashioned ice cream cones, bon appétit!
Gelato
The Italian gelato ice contains more milk compared to cream (6-7%) than the typical Danish ice cream. For gelato, light milk (1.5%) and whipping cream (38%) are used in a 2:1 ratio, but otherwise, it’s the same procedure as for ice cream. However, one must be very precise with the thickening, as there is a smaller margin between a split gelato ice cream and a non-thickened gelato ice cream. It must therefore be churned in an ice cream machine after the mixture has been thickened and cooled, as the hallmark of this type of ice cream is its light and airy texture. It is very difficult to make gelato with low-fat content without an ice cream machine.
Soft Serve
Soft serve is traditionally a vanilla ice cream mixed with whipping cream into a uniform creamy mass without lumps. Ice cream shops often have an automatic soft serve machine that mixes the two with air when you pull the machine’s handle. This way, you get a soft serve with a very light and airy texture, and air is also cheaper than both vanilla ice cream and whipping cream. Unfortunately, the vanilla ice cream in the common soft serve machine is unlikely made as ice cream but rather made with skimmed milk according to the above industrial recipe mixed with an ultra-high temperature-treated cream that should contain as much air as possible.
We have gathered a range of recipes for different types of ice cream that you can try at home: