Fat reduced Ice-cream (Sweet potato thyme ice-cream)

After creating our own "ice-cream machine" last year, now we are creating our own recipe of ice-cream, furthermore we are make calorie less ice-cream which we substitute sucrose and cream.

Ice-cream

Ice cream is favorable because of its sweet, cold, smooth and creamy texture. It is a frozen emulsion of fats and water added with air, sweetener and other flavouring. The creaminess of the ice cream is variable by percentage of fats and the size of ice crystals formed. Milk and cream are the usual sources of fats in the ice cream as it can enhance the richness of the ice cream. 

Many people might very enjoy it but nowadays people are more concert on health, people are trying to control their diet by reducing fat and sugar intake and so they give up on eating those high fat and sugar food such as ice cream.

Therefore low fat or fat reduce ice-cream will have a chance to stand out on the market for people who wants to stay healthy but still wants ice-cream

Modification of the food by using of fat substitutes is one way, substitutes are can be either lipid-, carbohydrate-, or protein based ingredients (Sanchez, Klopfenstein and Walker, 1994).

Before beginning to design and improve our ice-cream recipe, we tried on a stranded recipe ice-cream, as stranded is the most original and best recipe. Stranded recipe ice-cream is like our target, we create our ice-cream recipe but keeps our ice-cream basic requirement such as creaminess as similiar or better than the standed reicpe,

Improved Ice-cream 

In our calorie reduce ice-cream, we used maltitol to substitute the sucrose (which is also know as table sugar) and adding in sweet potatoes to reduce the usage of cream.

Maltitol

Maltitol is an artificial sweetener also known as sugar alcohol produced by the hydrogenation of maltose. It has a similar taste to sugar. And the most important thing is it provides fewer calories than sugar. According to Calorie Control Council it is 2.1 calories per gram for maltitol versus 4.0 calories per gram for sugar. As maltitol is a disaccharide, the human body takes a longer time to absorb it, therefore it is more suitable for diabetic patients to consume. 

Sweet Potatoes 

After cooking the sweet potato mash it into puree, it can give a creamy texture which is similar mouth feel as cream in ice cream. Sweet potato puree is high in nutrients such as carbohydrates, soluble and insoluble fibers, vitamins, amino acids and more. This enhances the nutritional value of the ice cream. In addition, sweet potato also provides some natural sweetness and it is a low glycemic index food which is more desirable as it affects the blood glucose uptake of the body.

Calorie reduce Ice-cream

Recipe (This recipe makes 1.5kg of ice-cream)

125g        Cream

375g        Sweet Potatoes

1000ml    Low Fat Milk

380g        Maltitol

2             Vanilla Pod

12nos      Egg Yolk

6g           Thyme Leaves

Procedure 

1. The sweet potatoes were cleaned and peeled, then cut to small pieces. Sweet potato was baked in the oven at 190 degree celcius for 35 minutes and steamed for another 15 minutes.
2. Cooked sweet potatoes were mashed with a fork or whisk when still hot, and left aside for later use.
3. In another bowl, egg yolk and maltitol were creamed together
4. Milk and the vanilla pod were heated together until 80 degree celsius.
5. The vanilla pod was removed and the milk was let to cool to 60 degree celsius before pouring into the egg mixture. Mixture was stirred well.
6. The mashed sweet potatoes were added to the custard and the mixture was poured into a blender and blended well. This step was done a few times as the blender cannot hold all the liquid in one blend.
7. The blended mixture was strained several times using a strainer to make the mixture smoother. It was blended again if there are still sweet potato chunks.  
8. The mixture was transferred into a pot and the thyme leaves were added. The mixture was tempered until it reached nape consistency (80 degrees celsius).
9. Ice cream mixture was strained again to remove the thyme leaves and smoothen the mixture.
10. The mixture was poured into the ice cream maker machine.
11. The ice cream was churned in the ice cream machine until smooth ice-cream mixture was formed.
12. The ice cream mixture was then frozen in freezer until desired consistency.