{"id":20721,"date":"2015-04-14T12:59:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T12:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=20721"},"modified":"2024-11-27T15:18:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T20:18:26","slug":"better-and-healthier-ice-cream-through-engineering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/04\/better-and-healthier-ice-cream-through-engineering\/","title":{"rendered":"Better (and Healthier) Ice Cream Through Engineering"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens when you mix UConn\u2019s famous Creamery and its top-notch Chemical Engineering department? If things go right, you get an ice cream that forgoes traditional sugar, but still earns a place along the famously delicious ice creams at the Dairy Bar.<\/p>\n

\"Anh<\/a>
Anh Nguyen \u201915 (ENG), left, Anson Ma, assistant professor of chemical and bimolecular engineering, Leonora Yokubinas \u201915 (ENG) and Nicholas Fleming \u201915 (ENG) taste a test batch of reduced sugar ice cream at the UConn Creamery on April 8, 2015. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s the goal of two student teams working toward Senior Design Day. That event, May 1, is when students in the School of Engineering present their work toward solving a particular problem.\u00a0 Both teams are working with advisor Dr. Anson Ma, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Institute of Materials Science.<\/p>\n

One of the teams met on a recent morning at the UConn Department of Animal Science Creamery in the George White Building. This is where UConn\u2019s ice cream is produced and later sold at the Dairy Bar next door. Bill Sciturro, manager of dairy manufacturing in the Department of Animal Science, helped the team work the batch machine, which freezes the mixture into ice cream. The aptly named machine makes one batch at a time \u2013 no more than a half gallon – and is used for testing purposes. Once a new recipe meets Creamery standards, it goes into production and is made with the continuous machine, which operates on a minimum of 50 gallons.<\/p>\n

Instead of cane sugar, this team is using erythritol, a natural sweetener derived from corn. They did so after surveys indicated a demand on campus for ice cream with alternative natural sweeteners. Erythritol is up to 70 percent as sweet as table sugar and has almost no calories. Most ice cream companies would call this \u201csugar-free\u201d for marketing purposes. The students call it \u201creduced-sugar\u201d because they\u2019re scientists, and they\u2019re counting the sugar that already exists in the milk. Get rid of lactose, they say, and you\u2019re working with a whole other set of circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>
Bill Sciturro pours a test batch of reduced sugar ice cream into a batch freezer at the UConn Creamery on April 8, 2015. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ice cream\u2019s semi-solid state is the result of a fragile balance of ingredients, and it\u2019s no easy trick to replace old-fashioned sugar and still get the rich taste and texture that makes the Creamery\u2019s ice cream so popular.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to change the solids, because that changes the freezing point \u2013 and that determines the way it behaves as an ice cream,\u201d said Nicholas Fleming, one of the three team members. Too many salts and carbohydrates, he said, and the freezing point becomes too high for conventional freezers. To get it right, the team did a lot of experiments and calculations with heat transfer and ice recrystallization to see how their product fared with the Creamery\u2019s current storage practices.<\/p>\n

Considering the complexities of ice cream\u2019s make up, Ma said he is impressed by the students\u2019 achievements so far. \u201cBoth teams have applied what they have learned in their engineering classes to arrive at their final recipe, while being cognizant of the<\/p>\n

\"Chemical<\/a>
Chemical engineering majors make a test batch of reduced sugar ice cream at the UConn Creamery on April 8, 2015. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

economic feasibility, environmental impact, health, and safety.\u201d Ma says.<\/p>\n

So why ice cream? Ma said using examples from everyday life is one of the most effective ways to engage the younger generations and the general public in science. \u201cThe ice cream project really satisfies my passions for education, research, and food simultaneously!\u201d Ma says.<\/p>\n

After finishing the first batch at the Creamery, the team handed out samples to a few observers. Even at the very non-ice cream hour of 9 a.m., it proved a tasty snack – smooth, creamy and betraying no indication of a non-traditional sweetener. At least to the casual observer. The team members were glad that the erythritol left no chemical hints or after-taste, but they agreed that the batch could use more vanilla. Team member Anh Nguyen said his ice cream palette has become a good deal more discriminating since the start of the project.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m a lot more picky,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For the next batch, team member Leonora Yokubinas was a little more generous with the vanilla extract, which she poured from a gallon jug into a graduated cylinder. They reach a consensus after a second taste test: erythritol-based ice cream is just about consumer-ready.<\/p>\n

Ma\u2019s other student team is using Splenda \u2013 an artificial sweetener derived from sugar. Team member Ivan\u00a0Nguyen said they chose Splenda because it is FDA approved,\u00a0and has\u00a0fewer harmful side effects than other artificial sweeteners\u00a0(such as\u00a0Aspartame and Acesulfame Potassium). It’s also 600 times sweeter than sugar, so they don’t need to use much. This also means\u00a0that there is less solid content in the base composition, however, so large ice crystals can\u00a0form and make for a less creamy texture.<\/p>\n

To address this issue, the team\u00a0is flash-freezing their mixture with liquid nitrogen. This, they say, allows for some flexibility with the ice cream\u2019s base composition because it freezes the ice cream quickly enough to form extremely small ice crystals \u2013 the key to maintaining a smooth texture.\u00a0They use stainless steel Popsicle molds with 75 mL of\u00a0the ice cream mix, which are\u00a0dipped into a Styrofoam container filled with liquid nitrogen for 3 minutes. They then run the molds under hot water to melt the outside layer of ice cream so they can easily be removed. Popsicle sticks are then added to the mix before it\u00a0freezes,\u00a0for easier handling.<\/p>\n

Sciturro\u2019s just as invested in these projects as the students; the Dairy Bar could use a low-sugar option. They haven\u2019t offered one in the past, but Sciturro said there have been requests. Rarely do people go to an ice cream parlor specifically for a low-sugar treat, he said, but if someone with special dietary needs comes with their family then it\u2019s great to have that option. \u201cAfter all, who doesn\u2019t know someone who has a need for low-sugar foods?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engineering a healthier ice cream option at the UConn Creamery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":222103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[39],"class_list":["post-20721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 05:21:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222113,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721\/revisions\/222113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/222103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20721"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=20721"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}