A delicious and refreshing cold dessert is celebrated each year on August 8th as it is National Frozen Custard Day.
Similar to ice cream, frozen custard is made with eggs in addition to cream and sugar.
There is a lot of conflicting information concerning the history of frozen custard. Recipes for the custard mix can be traced back to the 1900’s, but the commercial machines used to create frozen custard weren’t invented until 1920 or so.
Ice cream vendors, Archie and Elton Kohr, invented frozen custard on Coney Island, New York in 1919 when they found that adding egg yolks to ice cream created a smoother texture and helped the ice cream stay cold longer.
- The Kohr brothers sold 18,640 cones on their first weekend on the boardwalk.
- A 1933 World’s Fair frozen custard stand, in Chicago, helped introduce it to a wider audience.
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin became known as the “unofficial frozen custard capital of the world.” Per capita, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has the highest concentration of frozen custard shops in the world.
- The United States Food and Drug Administration requires frozen custard products to contain at least 10 percent milk fat and 1.4 percent egg yolk solids.
- Frozen custard is commonly prepared fresh at the place of sale.
- Custard bases may also be used for quiches and other savory foods.
- Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce (crème anglaise), to a thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs.
- Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk.
- The most common custards are used as desserts or dessert sauces and typically include sugar and vanilla.
- Sometimes flour, corn starch, or gelatin is added as in pastry cream or creme patissiere.
- To understand the reason for the great taste of Frozen Custard is to understand the ingredients required for it to be authentic. Frozen Custard must contain at least 10% butterfat and 1.4% egg yolk. Frozen Custard achieves its creaminess through a production process that produces less air (“overrun”) and fewer ice crystals than traditional ice cream.
- By comparison, traditional ice cream must also contain 10% butterfat. Greater richness of the traditional ice creams is often achieved by using higher percentages of butterfat. Some of the gourmet ice creams contain as much as 17% or more butterfat.
- Typically, Frozen Custard is made daily and served at 18-19 degrees Fahrenheit. Traditional ice cream is made at 22-24 degrees Fahrenheit, flash frozen to -10 degrees Fahrenheit, and stored at -20 degrees Fahrenheit. Scooping and serving temperature for ice cream is 5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
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