Unlike eating at home, which is often hurried and automatic, eating out provides an opportunity to socialize and enjoy a delicious full course meal at a leisurely pace. In fact, when I’m out dining at a restaurant I never skip the chance to finish the night off with a nice dessert, although I rarely have something sweet at home. And I believe that’s the case with most people.
This is why successful restaurant owners and managers always try to offer the best desserts to complement a well-prepared meal. The standard dessert cart includes various different cakes, pies, fruit salads, and of course, my favourite sweet treat – ice cream. While orders of frozen desserts soar in summertime, ice cream is also a popular treat during the colder months. Thanks to its cool and light texture, it’s easy to make room for ice cream even after you had a particularly large main-course.
Whether it’s a simple diner, a cafe, or a restaurant that serves Chinese, Indian, Italian, any hospitality place can benefit from making a good ice cream machine commercial purchase. If you’re an owner or a manager of such a place, it’s worth knowing that not all ice cream machines are alike. Although you’d think that ice cream can only differ in flavour, in reality there’s much more to it. Anyone who wishes to serve ice cream should be aware of the essential ice cream difference before deciding on a machine.
Regular Ice Cream
Regular ice cream is a restaurant classic. The machines used to make can also be applied to create other types of frozen treats like sorbet and tofu ice cream. The differences between these desserts lie in their recipes, not the machinery used. A basic ice cream machine commercial design consists of an outer drum, an internal container and a paddle or churn to stir and blend the ingredients and keep the ice cream from becoming frozen solid. The trick that makes ice cream freeze but prevents it from becoming solid is that with continuous mixing, particles freeze separately. To achieve its trademark creaminess, premium ice cream has a relatively high fat content. This type of ice cream cannot be dispensed from the machine and needs to be scooped for serving.
Soft Serve Ice Cream
On the other hand, soft serve ice cream is smooth and liquid-like and is dispensed directly from the machine into a bowl or an ice cream cone. Unlike traditional ice cream, this type of treat needs to be kept at a higher temperature and stirred before serving to achieve it’s fluffy texture. For this reason, if you want to offer soft serve ice cream on your menu, you’d need a different machine than the one used for standard ice cream. Soft serve ice cream machines generally make chocolate and vanilla flavoured desserts. Some machines can make one flavour at a time, while others have a third twisting option that combines both flavours in a single serving. Owners can create additional flavours by adding syrup to the vanilla mix.