Ice cream raw material guide: what to really buy to get started

1 Jul 2024 | Ice Cream, Gastronomic Ice Cream, How To, Pacojet, Vegan Ice Cream

Guide to ice cream raw material - CucinaLi Sapore Puro

When you start making ice cream at home, the risk is always the same: buying a thousand “ice cream shop” ingredients without really knowing what they are used for.

Dextrose, milk powder, neutrals, inulin, glucose, locust bean gum, guar gum, tara gum, dried fruit pastes… after five minutes it feels like opening a laboratory instead of making good ice cream.

Actually, you don’t need to buy everything right away. You need to understand which ingredients really play a role in the mixture and which ones only become useful when you want to work more technically.

This guide was created for just that: to help you choose the raw material for ice cream without going haphazardly, without filling your pantry with unnecessary jars, and with some practical guidance on quantities and priorities.

First question: how much ice cream will you actually make?

Before ordering ingredients, make a simple estimate.

If you make about 800 g of ice cream a week for three months during the summer, you arrive at about 10 kg of ice cream. That’s not small, but it’s not laboratory production either.

On 10 kg of ice cream, indicatively you could use:

  • about 2 kg of total sugars
  • About 1 kg between milk powder and milk protein
  • 250 g of neutrals, which are often already more than enough for home use
  • 250 g inulin or fiber, if you make sorbets, vegan ice cream or more modern recipes
  • 500 g or 1 kg of dried fruit paste, if you love flavors such as hazelnut, pistachio or almond

The point is simple: some ingredients are used by tablespoons, others by grams. That’s why it pays to think about quantities first, not just the shopping list.

The essential ingredients to get started

To start in earnest, without overcomplicating your life, I would start here.

Sugars

Sucrose, that is, ordinary cooking sugar, is not always enough. In ice cream, sugars are not only used to sweeten, but also to control the texture and serving temperature.

The most useful sugars are:

  • sucrose
  • dextrose
  • atomized glucose
  • maltodextrins

Dextrose is especially useful in sorbets because it helps lower the freezing point and makes the ice cream less hard. Atomized glucose gives body and helps manage sweetness and texture. Maltodextrins are useful when you want to increase solids without increasing sweetness too much.

Trehalose, erythritol, maltitol and other more particular sugars I would keep for a later stage: gourmet ice cream, low glycemic index recipes (hypoglycemic ice cream), specific formulations.

Milk powder and protein

Low-fat milk powder is one of the most important ingredients for improving the texture of milk-based ice creams.

It adds milk solids, helps creaminess and allows a more stable mixture to be built up. It should be used judiciously, however, because too much milk powder can lead to excess lactose and texture defects.

For starters, low-fat milk powder is more than enough. Caseinate and whey protein become interesting if you want to work on more technical recipes, protein ice cream or special formulations.

Neutrals and stabilizers

This is where many people get scared, but it is not needed. Neutrals serve to improve texture, limit ice crystal formation and make ice cream more stable over time.

For advanced home use, you can start with:

  • locust bean gum, if you are pasteurizing
  • Tare rubber, very versatile
  • guar gum, often useful in combination
  • Xanthan gum, especially for variegates, sauces or cold processing

No need to use everything together. In fact, better to start simple and figure out what changes in the recipe.

As an order of magnitude, many neutrals are used around 3-5 g per kg of mixture. This means that a 250 g jar can last quite a while.

Fibers

Fiber is very useful, especially in sorbets, vegan ice creams, and recipes where you want to enhance body and creaminess without making it too heavy.

The most common is inulin, which can help give a rounder, creamier feel. There are also citrus fibers, potato fibers or flaxseed fibers, but you don’t need to buy them all to get started.

If you make a lot of sorbets or dairy-free ice cream, inulin is probably one of the first fibers to put in your cart.

Dried fruit pastes

Hazelnut, pistachio, almond and other dried fruit pastes make a huge difference in the final taste.

Here quality really matters. A good hazelnut or pistachio paste can completely transform ice cream, while a mediocre paste often forces you to correct, flavor or mask.

Doses vary, but as a practical reference many dried fruit pastes use around 80-120 g per kg of mixture.

What to buy now and what to put off

If you have to make a smart first order, I would reason like this.

Getting started:

  • dextrose
  • atomized glucose
  • low-fat milk powder
  • Two simple neutrals for ice cream and sorbets, for example, locust bean gum and tara gum
  • inulin, if you make vegan sorbets or ice cream
  • a good hazelnut or pistachio paste, if you want to work on classic flavors

For a more advanced stage:

  • trehalose
  • maltodextrins
  • caseinate or whey protein
  • Emulsifiers such as sucrose esters
  • particular fibers

The problem is not having few ingredients. The problem is having ingredients you don’t know how to use yet.

How much to order?

For home use, there is no point in buying huge bags if you don’t yet know how much you will really use.

As a practical reference:

  • Neutrals: 250 g is enough for several trials
  • inulin: 250 g is a good initial size
  • Dextrose and atomized glucose: 1 kg dextrose, also 500 g atomized glucose
  • Milk powder: 500 g or 1 kg, if you make milk-based ice cream often
  • dried fruit pastes: 500 g if you want to try, 1 kg if you already know you will use them often

The important thing is not to buy only according to the price per kilogram. If an ingredient is used at 0.5%, the small size may be more than enough.

Where to buy the raw material for ice cream

For raw material I work with SaporePuro, because they have a very wide selection of useful ingredients for ice cream, pastry, and creative cooking.

With the CUCINALI coupon you can get a 20% discount on products purchased. You can also use this link that already contains the coupon, the discount is applied in the shopping cart.

ordinare materia prima del gelato banner

My advice, however, is not to start by buying everything. Use this guide as a small priority list: first the really useful ingredients, then the more technical ones as you begin to better understand how you want to balance your recipes.

Do you want to leave without buying random ingredients?

If you want to avoid ordering ten different jars without really knowing where to start, I have created together with SaporePuro the Gelato Project Starter Kit.

This is a kit designed for people who want to start making homemade ice cream at home with a sensible selection of raw materials: technical sugars, low-fat milk powder, inulin and natural stabilizers. Plus it includes Gelato Project Snapshot, a selection of 10 balanced recipes to get you started right away with the right ingredients.

It is not mandatory to start there, of course. You can also buy the individual ingredients by following this guide. But if you want a convenient shortcut, already designed for a season of home testing, the Starter Kit is probably the easiest way to start.

Don’t forget to take advantage of my special 20% discount on the starter kit (but also on the rest of your cart) by using the promo code “CUCINALI” when you checkout at saporepuro!

Discover the Gelato Project Starter Kit at SaporePuro

Raw material alone is not enough

Buying better ingredients helps, but it does not solve everything.

An ice cream does not become creamy just because you used dextrose, milk powder or a good neutral. It becomes creamy when those ingredients are dosed the right way inside a balanced mixture.

Therefore, if you want to go beyond “feel-good” recipes, I recommend that you also delve into balancing. On CucinaLi you will find:

  • the free course on balancing ice cream
  • BilanciaLi, my homemade ice cream balancer
  • Gelato Project, the guide with hundreds of pre-balanced recipes

The raw material is the starting point. The balance is what gives it meaning.

Frequently asked questions about raw material selection

Is it necessary to purchase all the sugars and neutrals listed?

No, some are optional and depend on the type of ice cream you want to produce. For example, trehalose is recommended for gastronomic ice cream, while maltitol and erythritol for low-glycemic index ice cream.

Can I use glucose with a dextrose equivalence (DE) other than 39?

Yes, but it is important to know one’s specific needs and to know how to balance one’s ice cream to adapt the recipe according to the sugars available. A tool such as bilanciali comes to the aid of managing and balancing one’s ice cream in a scientific way and at a cost that is certainly affordable.

Can I make ice cream without using thickeners or emulsifiers?

Yes, it is possible, taking advantage of dairy and egg proteins and helping with fiber, but the use of thickeners such as tara gum or locust bean gum improves the structure and stability of the ice cream.

How is the ice cream composed?

Ice cream is mainly composed of water, sugars, fats (in the case of gelato), non-fat milk solids (such as skim powdered milk and whey protein), fiber (such as inulin), stabilizers and emulsifiers (such as tara gum, locust bean gum, xanthan gum, mono and diglycerides of fatty acids), as well as ingredients that impart the specific flavor such as dried fruit pastes (e.g., hazelnut paste, pistachio, almond). For artisanal ice cream, the quality and careful choice of these raw materials are essential to ensure a smooth texture, rich taste, and good texture.

What’s inside the homemade ice cream?

Natural and carefully chosen ingredients such as milk, cream, sugars of various types (sucrose, various types of glucose), high-quality fruit or nut pastes and, in some cases, natural additives such as stabilizers or emulsifiers to improve the texture and creaminess are found in artisanal ice cream. The main difference from industrial ice cream lies in the selection of high-quality raw materials and the absence of unnecessary artificial additives.

Andrea Rapanaro
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