Scientifically, what is "no-melt" ice cream? And does it truly never melt?

Our writer Jenn Bane interviewed Rich Hartel, a professor of food science at 美国威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校 .

So you study ice cream! That’s gotta be fun.

My lab has been studying ice cream melting for years. It's kind of a weird niche thing. Ice cream is pretty cool because it's got ice crystals, air cells and fat globules. People think it's a delicious treat, which of course it is, but it's probably the most complicated food that there is.

I read that you added polyphenols — a compound found in plants — and this made the ice cream hold its shape for hours. Tell me how this worked.

[We study] melting by taking a slab of ice cream and putting it onto a screen and watching it. We watch it melt in a couple of ways: We measure? the height with video cameras. Another way: We measure? the drip through the screen, into a beaker below. Some ice creams melt all the way through. Some don't. [We ask], how fast does it melt? Does it melt on your hand and run down your arms?

Does the ice cream melt eventually?

“No-melt” is what comes up when you Google it. If you leave it out for long enough, of course it’s going to melt. What it doesn’t do is collapse because it's got all these structures. After the ice is gone, the structures that are left are the fat globule clusters and the air cells. If they're strong enough to withstand the force of gravity pulling it down, then it won't collapse.

So it should be called “no-collapse” ice cream. Does no-melt ice cream — or no-collapse ice cream — taste different?

Yes. Taste and flavor release is a function of how the molecules move around once it's in your mouth and starting to melt. We did some sensory work on ice creams that stand up, and they tend to have more of a fatty mouthfeel.?

Are mouthfeel and texture the same thing?

Texture is a sensory property related to mouthfeel. But mouthfeel is more specific to what's in your mouth.?

Oh. Duh.

Texture is more of an external thing. We typically measure texture by probing things. We measure the hardness of ice cream by pushing it with a probe and seeing how far the probe goes into it.?

So are you working with ice cream in your lab all day?

The three things that I work on are ice cream, chocolate and candy.?

Wow, awesome. Or are you sick of them by now?

At first my students are big on it, then they get tired of it. I don't eat that much. My lunch today was was leftover chicken and a salad.

Good for you.?

Read more about the UW team's no-melt investigation in this article.

Just Curious is sponsored by Provable, the science communication force of M. Harris & Co. and MG Strategy + Design.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Header image by DALL-E Open Ai. If you liked what you read today, here's more: