Soft-Frozen Dairy Desserts

Abstract

Soft-frozen dairy desserts appeal to many consumers because of their creamy and smooth texture. These dessert products are typically frozen on the retail premises from manufactured and distributed mix and are consumed in the soft-frozen state soon after being prepared, without hardening, in the form of cones, sundaes, parfaits, banana splits, milk shakes, and related items. Soft-frozen desserts remain popular with customers of shops focusing on these products and in fast-food-style restaurants. Less capital is needed by the retailer to get into the soft-serve ice cream business than to make and sell hard-frozen ice cream. Although vanilla is by far the most common flavor, chocolate or other flavors are also available and opportunities to add flavored syrups and/or mix-ins and to enrobe cones with chocolate have greatly increased the consumer’s options for soft-serve products. Soft-frozen desserts include ice cream, light or low-fat ice cream, ice milk, frozen custard, and frozen yogurt. Milk shakes are also included in this category, as most foodservice operations would operate a milk shake freezer to make shakes from a prepared dairy mix in much the same way as they would for soft-serve cones. This chapter reviews production and consumption statistics for soft-frozen products, soft-serve mix composition, operation of freezers for soft-serve and shakes, and cleaning and sanitizing soft-serve freezers. It also reviews state-of-the-art equipment offered by the major equipment manufacturers.