OA22082A - Spiced and tropical fruit ice cream and its manufacturing process. - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention is an ice cream obtained by mixing a base and an additional composition of tropical plant extracts, flavoring, texturizing, and coloring agents, which may be derived from Hibiscus sabdariffa sepals, Adansonia digitata powder, Combretum micranthum leaves, Tamarindus indica seeds, Mangifera indica fruit pulp, Zingiber officinale rhizome, and Pennisetum glaucum seed powder. The invention is achieved by a process that includes preparing the base by dispersing the ingredients in a given volume of milk; preparing the additional composition of tropical plant extracts by obtaining sweetened and concentrated juices of plant extracts; and formulating the mixture by creating a blend of 70%–85% base and 15%–35% plant extracts. The blend is churned to produce the ice cream, which is then preserved and stored in a freezer.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Spiced and tropical fruit ice cream and its manufacturing process

The present invention relates generally to the gastronomic field, and concerns ice cream. More specifically, it relates to the preparation of ice cream using raw materials consisting of cereals and other ingredients readily available in tropical regions in order to give it a particular texture and flavor.

The invention also relates to the process developed for obtaining ice cream according to the invention.

Ice cream is a dessert consumed worldwide. Traditionally made from ingredients such as milk, cream, sugar, and various flavors, ice cream is constantly evolving to meet consumer expectations and is gaining increasing importance as a dairy product.

From a physicochemical standpoint, ice cream is defined as a complex food matrix consisting of a frozen multiphase mixture containing ice crystals, air bubbles, and partially fused fat globules in an unfrozen serum phase. These structures affect product quality and shelf life; for example, crystal size is widely recognized as a critical factor in developing the smooth, creamy texture desired by consumers.

Structurally, ice cream is a colloidal emulsion, meaning it's a combination of two liquids that don't normally mix. One of the liquids is dispersed within the other, so that liquid fat particles, called fat globules, are distributed throughout a mixture of water, sugar, and ice, along with air bubbles. The texture of ice cream depends on the size of the ice crystals after freezing. Small ice crystals, about 10 to 20 µm in size, give ice cream its smooth, creamy texture, while larger ice crystals, with a diameter greater than 50 µm, give it a grainy texture (Marshall et al., 2003; Eisner et al., 2005; Drewett & Hartel, 2007).

The origins of ice cream date back to very ancient times. Writings report that ice cream and sorbet traveled a long way before arriving in Europe. Some articles estimate the existence of ice cream to be as old as 3000 BC, while others place it at 2000 BC.

121 BC. Historians have also found the earliest traces of ice cream recipes in China. These were made with goat's milk, honey, and aromatic peels. These articles specify that the Chinese mastered a very ingenious technique for creating artificial cold by mixing water and saltpeter, which allowed them to cool the preparation. Other writings indicate that the oldest known frozen sorbets in the world date back to the Persian Empire, during Antiquity. These recipes, based on water, cream, or milk, gradually spread throughout the world over time. At that time, ice cream was a royal delicacy; it was difficult to obtain due to both the complexity of transporting the ingredients and the cost involved.

Ice cream is a nutritious preparation made from a mixture of frozen ingredients, including milk, sugar and/or sweeteners, hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and flavorings. It is therefore a complete food, extremely rich in protein, fat, carbohydrates, minerals, particularly calcium and phosphorus, and vitamins. Ingredients such as colorings, egg products, and maltodextrins may also be added. This mixture, called a "mix," is pasteurized and homogenized before freezing. During freezing, heat is rapidly removed, and the mixture is churned more quickly, incorporating air bubbles and giving the final product a soft texture. In short, depending on the type of ice cream desired, the composition can vary in terms of fat content, non-fat milk solids, and sweeteners.

The various ingredients used in ice cream play a specific role depending on their nature and quantity. The freezing point, shelf life, and other sensory attributes such as sweetness and texture all depend on the dry matter content. Typically, ice cream consists of thickeners to increase the dry matter content, sweeteners to provide sweetness, stabilizers to prevent the formation of large ice crystals, emulsifiers to stabilize the emulsion, give it a smooth texture, and reduce the whipping time (they also allow for the incorporation of fine air bubbles), flavorings to enhance the taste and create a pleasant aroma, and coloring to give the ice cream its desired color.

Thickeners are generally milk fats, cream and butter, but also vegetable fats such as coconut oil, palm oil and many others.

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Sweeteners are primarily sucrose, but also glucose syrups and maltodextrins. Stabilizers, emulsifiers, flavorings, and colorings are generally food additives or other products. Flavorings are usually flavoring products, such as vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, pistachio, hazelnut, chocolate, macadamia nut, dried fruit, apricot, buckwheat, blueberry, black sesame, and rum.

Alongside traditional ice creams, there is a whole range of reduced-fat products and ice cream variations that can be consumed according to taste preferences and, above all, individual health requirements. These include: hard ice cream, made with cream and/or milk and sugar; soft-serve ice cream, also made with cream and/or milk and sugar; French ice cream, made with a pastry cream base containing eggs, milk and/or cream, sugar, stabilizers, and flavorings; Italian gelato, made with milk, cream (in a smaller quantity than milk), egg yolks, and sugar; and light ice cream, made with dairy products, sugar, stabilizers, and other flavorings, containing 25% less milk fat than regular hard ice cream. Low-fat ice cream, made with low-fat dairy substances, sugar, stabilizers, and other flavorings; frozen dairy dessert made with modified dairy substances and sugar; lactose-free ice cream, to which lactase, an enzyme that makes it easier to digest for individuals with lactose intolerance, is added; and organic ice cream, made with milk and other organic or natural ingredients.

The present invention, according to its characteristics and properties, may be similar to any of these creams and ice creams.

Ice cream preparation, whether artisanal or industrial, generally begins with a base. A commercial product, the base is the primary thickener; it is a semi-finished product comprising a mixture of ingredients used to make ice cream, to which the manufacturer adds other ingredients, or which undergoes further processing, with or without equipment, to obtain a finished product. The base ingredients consist mainly of skimmed milk, i.e., powdered milk and milk proteins, capable of absorbing large quantities of water and forming the basic structure of the ice cream; sugars that soften the ice cream and prevent it from crystallizing; and additives that are made up of...

[4| other thickeners, emulsifiers and stabilizers. The base can be customized or prepared by the ice cream manufacturer with other preferences.

Ice cream preparation generally involves four steps, which are as follows:

- Mixing of raw materials and pasteurization: the base is introduced into a tank equipped with a heating and agitation system. The temperature is raised to facilitate the dissolution of the mix ingredients by agitating it. And the tank continues to rise in temperature to pasteurize the mix;

- Maturation: this takes place at around 4°C and improves the mix's ability to expand, increases the ice's resistance to thermal shock, and makes it more resistant to melting;

- molding: the liquid mix is introduced into a turbine which transforms it into ice, by expansion and freezing, thanks to a rotary movement which brings air into the mix to reach a foam state and a crystallization of the water;

- Packaging, refrigeration and storage: Packaging takes place immediately after the ice cream leaves the turbine, quickly to prevent any warming of the ice. After packaging, the finished product is flash-frozen to reach a temperature of -20°C as quickly as possible, in order to crystallize any remaining water and ensure the microbiological preservation of the final product.

Apart from milk, its variants, and other derivatives, the other ingredients used to prepare ice cream remain closely tied to tradition, meaning their Asian or European origins. This explains the difficulty of access or sourcing for manufacturers living in other parts of the world. Therefore, to domesticate and democratize ice cream preparation, application WO2017006221, entitled "Combination of natural components and thickeners for the preparation of a frozen dessert or ice cream, process for preparing a frozen dessert or ice cream using such a combination, and ice cream or frozen dessert thus prepared," discloses a composition of frozen dessert or ice cream prepared using natural components and thickeners, employing a combination of maltodextrin, gum arabic, inulin, tara gum, and guar gum. This combination is mixed at a concentration of 1.2% with 30% of a liquid such as water, juice, hemp beverage, sunflower beverage, or an alcoholic beverage, and with a fruit or vegetable component at a concentration of 47%. The frozen dessert or cream

[51] Frozen dessert has an excellent texture and can be entirely natural, organic and/or plant-based. However, this frozen dessert or ice cream still contains very localized ingredients and is therefore difficult to access for most tropical countries.

This then raises the problem of the availability of ingredients for ice cream, which are sometimes very expensive for manufacturers in tropical countries and result in a high cost price for these manufacturers.

The present invention aims to provide ice creams incorporating suitable, available, easily accessible and less expensive ingredients.

To this end, the invention proposes ice creams obtained by adding to a base consisting of a mixture comprising at least a thickener, a sweetener, a stabilizer and an emulsifier, an additional preparation of extract of parts of tropical plants, flavoring, texturizing and coloring, and consisting of sweetened concentrates of said extracts.

According to one embodiment, these plant parts are the sepals of Hibiscus sabdariffa, the powder of Adansonia digitata, the leaves of Combretum micranthum, the fruit of Tamarindus indica, of Mangifera indica, the rhizome of Zingiber officinale, the seeds of Pennisetum glaucum, used in their pure form or combined with other plants or spices for their aroma and their preservative properties.

All of these ingredients possess appropriate physical properties to condition and shape the size of ice crystals when freezing ice cream and to interact with the base components to give the cream according to the invention a distinguished texture, taste, aroma and color.

In one embodiment, the ice cream according to the invention is obtained by a process which comprises three main steps:

- Preparation of the base: this step consists of dispersing in a given volume of reconstituted milk, with a dry matter content of 10-12%, a sweetener, fat, at least one thickener and a stabilizer, with the following respective mass percentages: 10-14; 1.21.6; 35-40 and 0.2-0.4. The resulting mixture is pasteurized between 80 and 85°C, then cooled between 5 and 10°C for a period of 5 to 7 hours to allow optimal maturation of the flavors and to develop the creamy texture of the base thus obtained;

[61

- Preparation of ancillary tropical plant extracts: The plant parts first undergo a pretreatment which may include drying, grinding, kneading, or pitting, depending on the case, and are then mixed with water in a ratio ranging from 55 to 350 g/L (w/v). The resulting mixture is thoroughly homogenized and then sieved and filtered as appropriate, before being brought to a boil or not, depending on the case, for 5 to 45 minutes. After boiling, the resulting infusion is cold-filtered and 1.5 to 2% aromatic plants and a preservative are added to produce a juice. Next, 20% to 80% of the extracted juice is sweetened according to the initial dry matter content. The resulting mixture is then heated to a boil for 5 to 10 minutes. The concentrated juice or syrup obtained constitutes an ancillary composition of tropical product extracts.

- Ice cream formulation: the base and the preparation or supplementary composition of extracts of parts of tropical plants are mixed in respective proportions of 70%-85% and 15%-35%. The resulting mix is churned to produce the ice cream according to the invention and stored in the freezer.

Advantageously, the ice cream according to the invention allows manufacturers to use locally available ingredients at all times. It also promotes these ingredients and thus provides substantial income for farmers.

Other features, advantages and properties of the present invention will be better perceived in the detailed description that follows, which is based by way of non-limiting examples on an embodiment illustrated by figure 1 of the single plate.

The embodiment describes three variants of the ice cream according to the invention which find their distinctiveness in the composition or ancillary preparation of extract of parts of tropical plants to be added to the ice cream base.

The invention discloses ice creams obtained by adding to a carefully prepared base an additional composition with extracts of tropical products, respectively in proportions of 70%-85% and 15%-35%. The mixture is then churned and cooled.

Said base and consists of a mixture comprising at least one thickener, one sweetener, one stabilizer and one emulsifier.

The additional composition of tropical flavoring, texturizing and coloring products is chosen from sweetened and concentrated juices of Hibiscus sabdariffa sepals, and Adansonia powder.

[7) digitata, Combretum micranthum leaves, Tamarindus indica seeds, Mangifera indica fruit pulp, Zingiber officinale rhizome, and Pennisetum glaucum seed powder. These compositions are used pure or combined with other plants and spices for their aroma and preservative properties. This supplementary composition possesses suitable physical properties to give these ice creams a rather distinguished texture, aroma, taste, and color.

In a preferred embodiment, 5 L of cream base is obtained by dispersing approximately 600 g of sucrose, 70 g of butter, 35 eggs, and 15 g of food additive, preferably E471, as an emulsifier and antioxidant, into approximately 5 L of milk containing about 12% dry matter. The resulting mixture is pasteurized to 85°C under constant stirring. After cooling to between 5° and 10°C, the preparation is left to rest for at least 6 hours before being stored in a freezer.

According to a preferred embodiment, 5 L of concentrated Hibiscus sabdariffa extract is obtained by infusing approximately 500 g of the plant's sepals in 5 L of water for 10 minutes. After steeping, the infusion is strained and approximately 50 mL of lemon (Citrus limon) juice is added. The preparation continues by adding between 3.5 and 4.5 kg of sucrose to the strained infusion, before boiling the mixture for 5 to 10 minutes. The resulting concentrated juice is then cooled and stored in a refrigerator.

According to a preferred embodiment, to obtain 5 L of an extract of kinkeliba leaves, approximately 350 g of leaves are boiled in approximately 5 L of clean water. The resulting infusion is left to stand and then a bunch of fresh mint (Mentha aquatica) and approximately 200 mL of lemon juice (Citrus limon) are added. The mixture is then brought to a boil after the addition of 4 kg of sweetener, preferably sucrose, for 5 to 10 minutes. After cooling, the resulting concentrated juice is stored in the refrigerator.

According to a preferred embodiment, 5 L of a supplementary mixture based on millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is obtained by kneading and then sifting approximately 1250 g of whole grain Pennisetum glaucum flour in about 5 L of water. The resulting mixture is boiled for 25 to 35 minutes. After cooling, the preparation is mixed with a ground paste of 4 to 6 ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizomes, approximately 50 mL of tamarind (Tamarindus indica) juice, and finally 3.5 to 4 kg of sucrose. After homogenization and sieving, the mixture is further

18] with the addition of 10 to 20 mL of lemon juice (Citrus limon). This gives the supplementary composition based on (Pennisetum glaucum) which is preserved and stored in the refrigerator.

According to a preferred embodiment, to obtain ice cream with Hibiscus sabdariffa sepal extract, 150 mL to 250 mL of Composition 5 concentrated extract of dried Hibiscus sabdariffa sepals is added to approximately one liter of base. The mixture is then churned for 5 to 10 minutes using an ice cream maker. The resulting ice cream is stored in the freezer.

According to a preferred method, ice cream with extracts of kinkeliba or Combretum micranthum leaves is obtained by preparing a mixture consisting of approximately 1 L of base and 100 to 200 mL of the supplementary composition of Combretum micranthum leaf extract. The mixture is churned for 5 to 10 minutes, and the resulting ice cream is then stored in the freezer.

In a preferred embodiment, ice cream with Pennisetum glaucum extract is obtained by adding 150 to 250 mL of a millet-based supplementary composition (Pennisetum glaucum) to approximately 1 L of base. The mixture is churned for 5 to 10 minutes, and the resulting ice cream is then stored in the freezer.

Claims (2)

1- Ice creams characterized by a base mixture and an additional composition or preparation of extracts of parts of tropical plants; the base comprising at least; a thickener, a sweetener, a stabilizer and an emulsifier, and the ancillary composition of tropical plants, with flavouring, texturising and colouring characteristics, which may be a sweetened concentrate of extracts of sepals of Hibiscus sabdariffa, powder of Adansonia digitata, leaves of Combretum micranthum, fruit of Tamarindus indica, pulp of Mangiïera indica, rhizome of Zingiber officinale, flour of seeds of Pennisetum glaucum, which may be used alone or in combination with other plants or spices for their flavour and preservative properties, which ancillary composition has suitable physical properties, to condition and shape the size of ice crystals at freezing, and to interact with the components of the base in order to give the ice cream a distinguished texture, taste, flavour and colour. 2- Ice cream according to claim 1, characterized in that the preparation comprises the following steps: - the preparation of the base which consists of dispersing in a given volume of milk at 10-12% dry matter content, a sweetener, fat, at least one thickener and a stabilizer, with the following respective mass percentages: 10-14; 1.2-1.6; 35-40 and 0.2-0.4, pasteurizing the resulting mixture between 80 and 85°C, then cooling it between 5 and 10°C for 5 to 7; - preparation of the supplementary composition of tropical plant extract, which consists first of drying or grinding, or kneading or pitting, as the case may be, the parts of the plants, then mixing them with water in ratios varying from 55 to 350 g/L (w/v), sieving and/or filtering the mixture obtained, and bringing it to a boil or not as the case may be for 5 to 45 minutes, cold filtering the infusion obtained, and adding to it 1.5 to 2% by mass of aromatic plants and preservative and 20 to 80% by mass of sweetener, and boiling in this case, the said mixture for 5 to 10 minutes to obtain a centered juice; - the formulation of the ice cream which consists of mixing the base and the additional composition of tropical plant extract in respective proportions of 70%-85% and 15%-35%, churning the resulting mix and preserving and storing the resulting ice cream in the freezer.