Lactose Crystallization in Ice Cream. III. Mode of Action of Milk Powder in Preventing Sandiness

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Abstract
Lactose crystallization proceeds at the same rate in ice cream contain- ing milk powder as it does in seeded ice cream. The lactose of the powder supplies crystal nuclei that serve as seed to form undetectable crystals in partially frozen ice cream which may be saturated with lactose. Editor. A method of producing ice cream of high serum solids without risking sandi- ness was patented by Gray and Turnbow (2) in 1932. The method consists of adding milk powder to partially frozen mix in the freezer. The generally ac- cepted explanation (6) has been that the lactose of the powdered milk does not dissolve, because the partially frozen mix is saturated with respect to lactose. Therefore, the ice cream has the same lactose concentration as a low serum solids product, which does not tend to go sandy. In the light of recent work (4, 5), another explanation seemed possible. A number of workers (1, 3, 6) using this method have noted that extremely large numbers of small crystals developed in the ice cream during storage. This sug- gested that the addition of milk powder to the mix produced numerous crystal nuclei and that these acted as seeding material. The supersaturated lactose would be deposited in the form of undetectably small crystals, which would eliminate the danger of sandiness, as in a seeded ice cream (4). The purpose of this study was to test the two proposed theories on the mode of action of milk powder in preventing sandiness in ice cream. If the accepted explanation is valid and the lactose of the milk powder does not go into solution, then the lactose crystallization would be slow, as in a normal low-solids ice cream. On the other hand, if the milk powder caused the development of numerous crystal nuclei, the lactose crystallization would be rapid (5), as in a seeded ice cream.

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