Mono- and disaccharides are sugars
Sugars are one of the main ingredients in making ice cream. Anyone who makes their own ice cream recipe will mainly opt for dextrose or sucrose, as has been done for many years. The ice creme calculator “Ice Solution” wants to educate you about all the possibilities you have.
Over the years we discover more and more different types of sugars. They all have different properties and characteristics.
Sugars include all mono- and disaccharides. Monosaccharides consist of 1 single molecule and disaccharides consisting of 2 molecules. Ultimately, our bodies try to break everything down into monosaccharides. This is because only monosaccharides can be absorbed in our intestines. Among the most common monosaccharides are Glucose (grape-sugar), Fructose (fruit-sugar), Galactose and Ribose.
An incredible number of different possibilities can be made with these monosaccharides.
A few examples of the most common disaccharides include Maltose (Glucose-Glucose), Trehalose (Glucose-Glucose), Sucrose (Glucose-Fructose) and Lactose (Glucose-Galactose).
Because they all have different properties and characteristics, they give us the opportunity to go much deeper into making ice cream recipes. There is more control when it comes to lowering the freezing point or sweetening power. This makes the control over how soft your ice cream becomes or how sweet or savory your ice cream becomes many times greater. It is incredible how this gives us extra possibilities for our by ice cream, and therefore our ice cream parlors, pastry chefs and cooks/chefs to create special flavors and turn them into a culinary experience.
This is one of the reasons I started Ice Solution. By understanding what each sugar and sweetener does, you can also begin to understand what they can do. And once you know that, the possibilities are almost endless.
Added and naturally present sugars
They are often divided into ‘natural’ present and ‘added’. Naturally presented are all the mono- and disaccharides that occur naturally in unprocessed products such as vegetables, fruit and dairy. Added sugars refers to all mono- and disaccharides used by consumer, chefs/cooks or industry that are added to the nutrition. The human body does not make distinction between added and naturally present, because the molecule is exactly the same.
Free sugars
The World Health Organization, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (the UK’s nutritional advisory body) and the Dutch Diabetes Federation use the term in their most recent advisory reports “free sugars”. Free sugars are all monosaccharides and disaccharides added by the producer, chef or consumer and naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrate. Naturally present sugars in fruit, vegetables and dairy are not included.
Intrinsic and extrinsic sugars
Some scientists, mainly in the UK Kingdom, divide sugars into intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic are part of the cellular structure of food, these are mainly for fruit and vegetables. Extrinsic do not occur naturally in food but are added to it for reasons of taste, structure and/or shelf life. For example sugars added to fruit jam. Non-milk extrinsic sugars (NMES) are extrinsic sugars without the lactose. NMES is virtually synonymous with the term free sugars. The only difference is that 50% of the sugars from stewed, dried or canned fruit is covered by NMES, but not among free sugars.
For sugar reduction methods read the low sugar and sugar free article.
Pac & Pod
When we talk about the lowering of the freezing point (FP or PAC) our goal is to make sure that the ice cream we are making has the best texture and mouthfeel and most importantily the best saturation. Saturation is key in making an ice cream that is soft, but does not melt very fast.
To learn more about the lowering of your freezing point, click here.
When we talk about the sweetening power (SP or POD) our goal is to make sure that the ice cream we are making has the best flavor intensity. By choosing diferent types of sugars and sweeteners you can determin how sweet your ice cream is going to be. You can even make a savory ice cream recipe. Or to accomodate some dietary wishes, it is even possible to create an ice cream recipe for a sugar free ice cream.
Learn more about the sweetening power, click here.
I find it important to provide the lesser know sugars for you to. So you can make your ice cream recipe exactly the way you want ik tot be. You’ll find them in our shop. Eden-shop.nl
