Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Cocoa Prices Reached All-Time Highs. What Does That Mean For Our Hallowe...


A huge cocoa shortage has hit the world's top cocoa-growing countries. Now, for the third year in a row, there are not enough cocoa beans to meet global demand. In 2024, cocoa prices soared to all-time highs. But what caused the shortage? And what does this mean for chocolate companies and chocolate lovers?

Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Physical Properties


Ice cream is considered a colloidal system. It is composed by ice cream crystals and aggregates, air that does not mix with the ice cream by forming small bubbles in the bulk and partially coalesced fat globules. This dispersed phase made from all the small particles is surrounded by an unfrozen continuous phase composed by sugars, proteins, salts, polysaccharides and water. Their interactions determine the properties of ice cream, whether soft and whippy or hard.

Ostwald ripening

Chocolate-glazed Magnum ice cream bar
Ostwald ripening is the explanation for the growth of large crystals at the expense of small ones in the dispersion phase. This process is also called migratory recrystallization. It involves the formation of sharp crystals. Theories about Ostwald recrystallization admit that after a period of time, the recrystallization process can be described by the following equation:

r = r(0) + Rt exp (1/n)

Where r (0) is the initial size, n the order of recrystallization, and t a time constant for recrystallization that depends on the rate R (in units of size/time).

To make ice cream smooth, recrystallization must occur as slowly as possible, because small crystals create smoothness, meaning that r must decrease.

Read more, here.

Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Happy Halloween


Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com


Sunday, October 27, 2024

15 Chillingly Fun Facts About Ice Cream


How long do you think ice cream has been saving humanity on hot summer days? No one knows for sure the story of how ice cream was discovered, but it likely dates back at least as far as the fourth century BCE. Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, would enjoy snow and ice covered in honey and nectar.  The Roman Emperor, Nero Caesar, was eating snow flavored with fruits and juices. Of course, it wasn't ice cream like we know it, but the story of real ice cream started outside of Europe. 

Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Ingredients and Standards of Ice Cream

Many countries have regulations controlling what can be described as ice cream.

In the U.S., the FDA rules state that to be described as "ice cream", a product must have the following composition:

  • greater than 10% milk fat
  • 6 to 10% milk and non-fat milk solids: this component, also known as the milk solids-not-fat or serum solids, contains the proteins (caseins and whey proteins) and carbohydrates (lactose) found in milk

It generally also has:

  • 12 to 16% sweeteners: usually a combination of sucrose and glucose-based corn syrup sweeteners
  • 0.2 to 0.5% stabilizers and emulsifiers
  • 55 to 64% water, which comes from the milk or other ingredients.

These compositions are percentage by weight. Since ice cream can contain as much as half air by volume, these numbers may be reduced by as much as half if cited by volume. In terms of dietary considerations, the percentages by weight are more relevant. Even the low-fat products have high caloric content: Ben and Jerry's No-Fat Vanilla Fudge contains 150 calories (630 kJ) per half-cup due to its high sugar content.

According to the Canadian Food and Drugs Act and Regulations, ice cream in Canada is divided into Ice cream mix and Ice cream. Each have a different set of regulations.

  • Ice cream must be at least 10 percent milk fat, and must contain at least 180 grams of solids per litre. When cocoa, chocolate syrup, fruit, nuts, or confections are added, the percentage of milk fat can be 8 percent.
  • The ice cream mix is defined as the pasteurized mix of cream, milk and other milk products that are not yet frozen. It may contain eggs, artificial or non-artificial flavours, cocoa or chocolate syrup, a food colour, an agent that adjusts the pH level in the mix, salt, a stabilizing agent that doesn't exceed 0.5% of the ice cream mix, a sequestering agent which preserves the food colour, edible casein that doesn't exceed 1% of the mix, propylene glycol mono fatty acids in an amount that will not exceed 0.35% of the ice cream mix, and sorbitan tristearate in an amount that will not exceed 0.035% of the mix. The ice cream mix may not include less than 36% solid components.

Read more, here.

Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com

Monday, October 21, 2024

How Delicious Candy is Made | Modern Marvels (16, E11) | Full Episode


Candy is America's sweetest guilty pleasure--so appealing that we spend $25 billion annually to experience it. Our cameras venture from Chicago to Santa Cruz to show you that behind every delicious bite, in Season 16, Episode 11, "More Candy."

Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com

Friday, October 18, 2024

Specialty Jobs in Ice Cream

Today, jobs specialize in the selling of ice cream. The title of a person who works in this speciality is often called an 'ice cream man', however women also specialize in the selling of ice cream. People in this line of work often sell ice cream on beaches. On beaches, ice cream is either sold by a person who carries a box full of ice cream and is called over by people who want to purchase ice cream, or by a person who drives up to the top of the beach and rings a bell. In the second method, people go up to the top of the beach and purchase ice cream straight from the ice cream seller, who is often in an ice cream van. In Turkey and Australia, ice cream is sometimes sold to beach-goers from small powerboats equipped with chest freezers.

Some ice cream distributors sell ice cream products from travelling refrigerated vans or carts (commonly referred to in the US as "ice cream trucks"), sometimes equipped with speakers playing children's music or folk melodies (such as "Turkey in the Straw"). The driver of an ice cream van drives throughout neighbourhoods and stops every so often, usually every block. The seller on the ice cream van sells the ice cream through a large window; this window is also where the customer asks for ice cream and pays. Ice cream vans in the United Kingdom make a music box noise rather than actual music.

Read more, here.

Contact us for pricing and availability.

1453 Sacramento Avenue
West Sacramento, CA 95605

916.372.2015 Direct
916.372.2201 Fax

Email: rvardan@yahoo.com