Scoop it
Lick it
Mess it
Love it
Who doesn’t like gelato? It’s one of the best inventions and, thank you, Italy! Let’s get one thing straight – gelato is a frozen dessert from Italy. It’s not ice cream! Let’s see how.
Air: Gelato contains 70% less air than ice cream and other frozen desserts. This means it’s less fluffy. Hence, it feels denser and has a richer flavor.
Fat: Gelato’s fat content closes at 6 to 10%. Other frozen desserts have much more fat.
Ingredients: While both gelato and ice cream contain sugar, milk, and cream, traditional gelato recipes use more milk than cream.
Serving Style: Because gelato is soft, it’s served using a spade – a flat spoon. Ice creams are scooped.
Now that we’ve cleared that, let’s get to the beginning. The sweet, sweet, beginning.
A genius man named Bernardo Buontalenti (even his last name has the word talent!) is credited with inventing gelato. The modern version of gelato was apparently made by the Italian chef Francesco Procopio Dei Coltelli, who introduced this cold creamy treat in the 1600s at his cafe in Paris.
Today, many gelato-makers use fancy machines to blend the ingredients. However, a few of them, like the Mokambo Gelateria, do some of the mixings by hand and then pour it into an age-old machine for five hours!
They’ve been using their family’s traditional recipe from the 1840s till today! They use only three ingredients: milk, sugar, and eggs. Of course, flavors are added too.
First, the sugar and eggs are beaten with a wooden spoon. That demands a lot of elbow grease! Then the milk goes in, followed by the flavor. Their most famous flavor is almond paste gelato. They make the almond paste themselves! This mixture is cooked over a stove for 10 minutes to let some water from the milk evaporate and make the flavor stronger.
It then goes into a mixer which the company has been using for 50 years now. This mixer will whip up the yummy batter for five hours and freeze into gelato. A yummy spade of creamy gelato is ready to take over your heart!
Fun fact: Gelato means ice cream in Italian! But remember what we learned – gelato is not ice cream!