Home made ice cream - or not?

Julie · Home made ice cream - or not?

I forgot to mention this, it was something I found out a few months ago.
Just about everyone knows of and recommends the ice cream shop in Cullen don't they?
Well, we were in there a couple of months ago buying ice cream and I asked which of the ice creams was definitely nut free. The lady was most helpful and said that the only one they could guarantee was nut free was the whippy stuff out of the machine (made up from powder stuff as you probably know). 'What about your home made ice cream' I asked?
'Well, I don't think it has nuts in', she said, 'I'll get the carton and you can look at the list of ingredients'.
She showed me a 1 litre tetrapack which was what they mix it up from.

Now call me picky, but shouldn't home made mean made from scratch on the premises?
Doesn't it convey the impression of a product created with fresh eggs, milk and cream?
I wonder just how many people would still be happy to pay that bit extra if they knew it was a chemical concoction that came out of a Tetrapack?

zombiecazz

Yes. I would expect home made to be home made.

lor138

I would be really disappointed and feel a bit duped to get 'plastic' ice cream!!

Julie

I would imagine that they haven't really thought about this too hard. I can't see it being deliberate subterfuge or she wouldn't have volunteered to show me that carton.
I know that all food producers (retailers, caterers, hoteliers etc..)are required by law to be able to provide a list of every ingredient in everything they sell. As she had to get the carton, it wouldn't seem that they have made these lists either.
I could even believe that in this age of covenience foods that someone could really believe that adding something to the contents of a Tetrapack amounted to making it from scratch.
I have got so cynical over the years that I tend to question everything I hear, see or read and things like this just make me worse :?

I have a recipe for ice cream 'to die for'.
Does anyone want me to put it on the foody section?? It is a great way to use up your eggs girls but you may need to let out your waistbands.

monkey nuts

Yes please Julie...yummy

Julie

I will do it on Monday after the kids have gone home and my night out tomorrow. We're going to see the Old Blind Dogs at Lossiemouth on Sunday night

Maidenstone

I am SOOOOOOOO disappointed. It is my very favourite ice cream and they always said in the shop that it was home-made, but I didn't realise it was out of a carton. That's that then!

Julie

They do also sell the Rizza's ice cream, it's the one in the tubs in the glass fronted freezer. Be warned though, it also contains transfats.
I went questing for a brand which didn't contain any and read the ingredients on every tub in the supermarket.
To my dismay, even the Mackie's luxury one has them in and I couldn't find one without them. In fairness to them I must say, I do know that Mackies have a dairy herd and make their ice cream from their own milk and local eggs, my friend's son used to work there.
It doesn't matter though, once you've tried the ice cream recipe I posted, you won't want to eat commercial ice cream any more. 8)
Has anyone tried it out yet?

Maidenstone

I will try and check out Mitchells ice cream from the Dairy in Inverurie.
You would think that in this day and age Mackies and Rizzas could leave stuff like that out!

Ina

Ina

Maidenstone

Well, I bought a little tub of ice cream from Mitchells, purely for research of course, and there didn't seem to be anything nasty in it - no hydrogenated fat, but it is not the best creamiest ice cream around.

I tried Bicocchi's when I was up in Fraserburgh and they insist theirs is home-made and it is good, so is Portsoy icecream from the shop in the main street, also homemade, but try as I might I can never actually identify any particular ingredient, and these two taste just like the Cullen ice cream.

I think I'll just have to do some more research .....

Julie

All retailers have a legal obligation to provide you with a list of the ingredients in everything they sell - this includes restaurateurs, cafe owners and hotels too. When something comes pre packaged it will be on the wrapping somewhere which covers this requirement.
All you have to do is ask and they will produce a list for you. If they can't do this on demand, they are in breach of the regulations and could have their licence to trade revoked. It's all about your right to know as well as health and safety.
It would save you a lot of time and trouble researching it

If you try the ice cream recipe I posted on the north eats, you won't eat any commercial kind ever again. I'd be quite interested to know if anyone made use of it.
It is a professional recipe devised by a real chef (not the celebrity kind) and I promise you, it is 'to die for' as they say. I got it from the BBC years ago - they did a series of short 10 minute films called 'hot chefs' which would be well worth re-running IMO.

By the way, if you want to continue your quest for real ice cream then watch out for those trans fats disguised as E numbers and by their chemical names. Even the so called organic products have them lurking in them - I expect the veg oil is organic before it is hydrogenated or something. All that glisters is not gold and all that

Ina

Julie

Look for them disguised as mono and di-glycerides of fatty acids, they're the same thing
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/mono_diglycerides.html

Of course, if these things aren't permitted they wouldn't dream of trying to pull a fast one, people just aren't like that are they?
My faith in human nature is restored.......

Maidenstone

Thanks for telling us that - I didn't know about mono and di-glycerides of fatty acids.

Ina

Have you actually seen these fats in any organic products?

This is an American article - I can imagine that they (the Americans) have different rules on organic foods.
And I know, Julie, that you are very suspicious of organic - but the controls are quite strict. At least in Europe they are.

Julie

I checked out the organic ice creams in Tesco on Tuesday - they only had two, Green and Blacks and Tesco's own brand. They were both free of trans fats but still had stabilisers and other odds and sods in them - why they have to add them makes me wonder what they are compromising on elsewhere. As far as I'm concerned an additive is an additive and if I wouldn't add it in the kitchen, it shouldn't be in my groceries.
The Mackie's range was there in it's entirity but for the organic stuff - conspicuous by it's absence, which is one of the organic brands I have seen mono and di-glycerides in. My friend's son used to work for them for a few years actually making the ice cream. He left there a couple of years ago but I could ask him exactly what and how much of those things he was required to mix into each batch. In their defence, I do know the animal welfare standards are very high there.
I am no more suspicious of organic foods than of any other, baffled why you should say that, perhaps you are thinking of someone else :?
I am of the mindset that wants answers and doesn't take anything at face value, which I feel is a good thing.

Ina

I haven't seen any organic Mackie's for the past two years or so, either - maybe they stopped doing them. (If you do discover them somewhere, could you please check who they are accredited by?) I'll have to see if I can find the list of allowed additives; some of them may be just something like "starch" - nothing wrong with that! Not all E numbers are unnatural additives, either.

Sorry I had the impression that you were particularly suspicious of organic... Actually, I think (my personal impression, from my work in that area), that organic producers are more likely to be open about what they stick into their products than others. At least, most of them are. As always, the bigger the company, the more likely they are to try and get away with whatever they can... Which is why I don't like organic if it comes from "factory farming and production" - i.e. if it's just the same old huge company (like Nestle, for example) putting on a green polish!

Thrawnquine

I've just checked my Mackie's Organic Ice-cream and it is accredited by the Organic Soil Association; is Gluten free, and suitable for vegetarians and is produced to E.U. standards.

Ina

The SA standards are tighter still than the EU standards, so if they are the accrediting body, they automatically fulfill the EU standards. Does it list the additives on the packet? And where did you buy it - I keep looking out for it, but it doesn't seem to be around anywhere! (Not that I get into "normal" shops a lot...)

Thrawnquine

I have the empty container beside me (the things I do for research!) and the ingredients are listed as:- Fresh milk, fresh cream (17%), sugar*, skimmed milk powder*, egg yolk**, corn syrup* stabilisers (carrageen, locust bean gum and guar gum).
* Organically produced; **Produced to EU organic standards; contains no artificial flavours, colour or preservatives. Mackies website is www.mackies.co.uk. I bought it in Tesco's, Ellon.

Ina

I dare say the corn syrup is produced according to US organic standards; so it would be interesting to find out what they have in that! Apart from that, I can't see anything wrong with the ingredients. Stabiliser are necessary in mass production.

If I get the time I'll e-mail Mackie's. I'd also like to know where else - apart from T's they sell it! I bought their organic strawberry ice cream at the local Spar in Peterculter once; years ago. They never stocked it again, although I kept asking for it. Lots of these little shops are simply not interested in selling what their customers want!

Julie

You need to look at it from their perspective too though. If nobody else buys it they are going to be left with a lot of product that will eventually go out of date. Your best bet is - like it or not - the larger retailers who have the higher turnover and can afford to stock it.
Glad to see that Mackies have cleaned up their act anyway. I don't think these products are as good as they could be for the money they charge or they wouldn't need to add stabilisers. I wonder what the gum from a locust bean looks like as it gloops out of a container - possibly like the contents of a spittoon :?
There now....do you still want to eat it with that mental picture in your head

Ina

Ratchet

Just a little note about Mackies: I'm not sure that they produce their own organic milk any more but I do know that they take organic milk from Glagowforest at Kinnellar. I don't think it's a problem as its still local. I'm sure that they've cleaned up their act but in the past their H & S record wasn't that great.

Ina

I didn't think they ever did produce their own! When I was working at Glasgoforest, they picked up our milk on certain days for the ice cream...

growingafamily

I'm fed up of going some where claiming to have "home-made" then it not being, they should say "not really home-made but we did have to put water in it a stir it a bit"
We get the green & blacks vanilla and sometimes chocolate if we're buying (but TBH still not as good as hubby's cherry choc chic from foraged cherries)
I know this may be not what some people would like but Tesco have both these and G&B white choc & rapberry on offer for £1.95 a tub so have stocked up a bit !!

wildgarlic

Please share your hubby's cherry choc chip recipe in the North Eats section - I'd love to try making ice cream this year.