Ingredients,
equipment and materials

Ingredients that are used in the elaboration of ice cream

Fat
This offers better taste and texture to the ice cream and facilitates beating it. It must be in equilibrium with the skim milk. It is ideal to use fresh cream. Other sources of fat can be butter, anhydrous lacteous fat, and vegetable fat.

Sugar
The amount of sugar used influences over the diminishing of freezing point, the softness of the product and its resistance to defrosting. It also has an effect on the sensation of melting and the softness of the ice cream. The most common sources are sugarcane sugar (saccharose), molasses, honey (inverted sugar: glucose and fructose), glucose (dextrose), saccharine, corn sugar, dextrin, etc.

Stabilizers
This produces softness, improves the texture, reduces the formation of ice crystals, and gives the product uniformity and resistance to defrosting. When it is combined with water, it increases the viscosity of the mixture. This is used to avoid the sugar from becoming separated and so that the product does not molder. The most common stabilizers are jello, sodium alginate, agar - agar, cellulose carboxyl methyl, pectin, and others.   

Emulsifiers
These permit the emulsion of liquids that normally would not mix. They are mono or deglycerides, and they make the texture of the ice cream to be softer and have a dryer appearance. Besides this, they increase the level of aeration.

Flavoring
These can be natural or artificial. The most used are those that have fruit flavor (strawberry, peach, mango, melon, pineapple and citric fruit). Fresh fruit is the ideal, but since it is not always available during all the seasons of the year using it is somewhat limited. It is used as whole frozen fruit or in fine pulp. If fresh fruit is not available, certified essences are used. Another very commonly used flavor is nuts (nuts, pecans, almonds, and peanuts). The nuts are usually toasted, because this process develops the flavor and eliminates the humidity and makes the nuts crunchier. The flavor of nuts is better when they are combined with vanilla and caramel.

Air (overrun)
This is introduced through beating and is a necessary ingredient, because without it the ice cream would be too dense, hard and cold. Increasing the volume of ice cream is done during the beating in cold (-12 degrees C.) and is known as overrun. The increase is referred to the volume of the mixture that goes into the machine before it is mixed. The range of overrun is usually higher in creamy ice creams than in fruit ice creams. Many times it represents the gaining margin of the product: if the overrun is high, the gaining will be higher, but you do run the risk of the ice cream not lasting that long, however, if it is low, the ice cream will be hard and too compact, which will considerably reduce the utility margin.