Quote:
Originally Posted by Fried Meat Ball!
It's the tara gum that makes it not melt, not being a custard. Milk, eggs, and sugar is pretty standard for an ice cream base. The egg acts as an emulsifier and makes the ice cream creamier. Ice cream or frozen custard should melt. The cheaper - or at least non-premium brands - use chemicals to stabilize and emulsify, as well as prevent it from melting very fast. Put any cheap custard up against even Breyer's, and you'll see the Breyer's melt a lot faster.
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Haagen Dazs is the only mainstream ice cream manufacturer that uses eggs and it's a very small percentage of the product. In large dairy production, eggs add too many unwanted headaches for ice cream, so they are avoided.
For the plain ice creams (vanilla, etc.) you can get away with milk, cream, sweetener, thickeners and flavoring. For the more popular flavors (i.e. cookies and cream) it's much more difficult to produce a decent product without stabilizers, emulsifiers, etc.
I'll use Breyer's as an example.
Here's their vanilla ice cream:
MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, TARA GUM, NATURAL FLAVOR. Ingredients and Nutrition Facts are current as of 3/1/13.
Here's their Rocky Road, which is very popular:
FROZEN DAIRY DESSERT [MILK, SUGAR, CORN SYRUP, CREAM, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), WHEY, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, GUAR GUM, CAROB BEAN GUM, CARRAGEENAN, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, TARA GUM, NATURAL FLAVOR], MARSHMALLOW SWIRL [MILK, CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, CREAM, WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, GUAR GUM, CARRAGEENEN, NATURAL FLAVOR], CHOCOLATEY COATED ALMONDS [CHOCOLATE FLAVORED COATING (SUGAR, COCONUT OIL, NATURAL COCOA, NONFAT MILK, WHOLE MILK POWDER, BUTTER OIL, SOY LECITHIN, NATURAL FLAVOR), DRY ROASTED ALMONDS]. Ingredients and Nutrition Facts are current as of 3/1/13
I worked in an ice cream plant during my college years. Making ice cream in high volume is quite a science. If it doesn't taste good and have good "mouth feel" it will rot in the grocers freezer.