Episode 17
Ice Cream Treats
Before refrigeration, ice cream was a handmade luxury. Ingredients went into a mixing bowl inside a tub filled with ice and salt water. The salt helped the ice absorb heat, cooling the mixture to below freezing. In the 1920s, commercial freezers made mass production possible, and the ice cream industry was born.
To make ice cream treats, you first have to make the ice cream.
It all begins with fresh cream. The factory stores it in refrigerated silos set just a few degrees above freezing. The silos feed a high-speed mixer that blends the cream with other ingredients. The main dry ingredients are powdered skim milk and plant-based stabilizers and emulsifiers. Stabilizers prevent the ice cream from crystalizing, and emulsifiers allow the mix to bond with air during the whipping process. The other ingredients are sugar and corn syrup. After about three minutes of mixing, a pumping system moves the mixture into pasteurization tanks and heats it to 162 degrees for half an hour, killing any bacteria and activating the stabilizers. Then, the factory homogenizes the mixture, a process that breaks up the fat globules, giving the ice cream a smooth texture. The mixture is cooled, and concentrated vanilla flavoring is added. Then, the concoction is chilled and whipped for about 15 seconds. Whipping blends the mix with air, transforming it from a liquid to a soft solid. Without air, the finished product would come out looking like frozen milk rather than ice cream.
The ice cream sandwich wafers are made of chocolate cake ingredients. A filling machine feeds two lines of wafers toward an injection pipe. Just as two wafers come together, the machine injects a third of a cup of vanilla ice cream in-between. The pipe's head shapes the ice cream into a rectangular slab that fits perfectly between the wafers. All this happens at a rate of 140 ice cream sandwiches per minute. As the sandwiches move on to packaging, the filling is still ice-cold from the freezing phase, so there's no threat of a meltdown. The packaging system raises each sandwich into a wrapper, then folds and tucks the ends. The next machine counts the sandwiches and inserts them into boxes. Once sealed, the boxes go directly into a storage freezer at minus 22 degrees.
On another line, ice cream cone production is underway. A feeder drops pre-wrapped sugar cones into holders on a conveyor belt. Sprayers coat the insides with a chocolatey layer, which adds flavor and creates a barrier between the cone and ice cream, so the cone remains crispy until you eat it. Next, nozzles squirt in the ice cream filling. One production line, two flavors. One row of cones gets vanilla ice cream, the other row, chocolate. Now for a tasty surprise in the cone's core: an injection of liquid caramel. This factory also makes ice cream cones with chocolate and strawberry sauce inside. Next, a chocolate flavored liquid topping. Then, the crunchy finishing touch: a layer of chocolatey coated puffed rice. Finally, the cones move under a lid dispenser that applies a wax-coated paper lid to each one. A heating element instantly melts the wax, sealing the lid to the cone's paper sleeve. From here, the ice cream cones go into boxes, then straight into the freezer, ready to take a licking.
Episode 26
Ice Cream Cones
The ice cream cone is the original edible container. Invented over a century ago, it adds crunch to the melt-in-your-mouth taste of ice cream. And it's one container that doesn't end up in the trash can, so you could say it adds a bit of virtue to the guilty pleasure of the double scoop.
The first ice cream cones were rolled waffles. And today's cones are simply modern versions of that.
Waffle cone batter starts with a lot of dark brown sugar. Caramel coloring is added, along with some secret flavoring ingredients. Water is piped into the blender. It's ice-cold to keep the batter from getting too sticky. A computer controls the addition of flour from a tank on the floor above. Vegetable oil is added as a giant beater mixes all the ingredients. The batter then flows out of the blender and into a refrigerated tank. An agitating blade keeps the blend at the consistency of pancake batter. Next, nozzles deposit batter onto baking plates that look like moving waffle irons. Top plates flip down, and the baking plates roll through a glass heated oven for a quick bake. The top plates lift up, revealing the cooked waffle patties. Automated arms help transfer the patties to rolling tools. The tools grab the patties and twist them into cones. The cones fall down a chute and ride an open elevator up and down to cool and harden. The waffle cones slide down another chute and move into lanes on a conveyor. Automated fingers help guide them into paper jackets. A computer with a camera eye counts the cones and sends a message to a machine that stacks them in the right increments. Here, a technician activates a device that pushes on a ball inside a cone to test the cone's breaking point. Looks like this waffle cone can hold up to some heavy licking.
Over in the sugar cone department, the baking plate system is designed differently. It makes patties that are fan-shaped and have a flat edge. This shape, along with a firmer batter, means sugar cones are stronger than waffle cones, so they're a more popular choice for hard ice cream. Packers stack the cones in styro foam trays. Then the packages travel through a curtain of high-density, polyethylene film. A heated sealer finishes the wrapping job. An X-ray machine sends information about the contents to a computer that counts the cones and alerts inspectors to any problems. Next, automated arms pick up cartons and open them so the packs of cones can be inserted.
But there's still one more cone variety in the works: colorful cake cones. Cake cones are less sugary than other varieties and have a more cake-like texture. Batter is pumped into upright molds. Cake cones are shaped differently from waffle and sugar cones, because they have flat rather than pointed bottoms. Metal cores plunge into the molds to complete the shape. This action also enhances the cake cone's flaky texture. The cones are baked as they pass by a gauntlet of gas heaters. Then it's down a chute and off to the packaging station. Unlike the other cones, cake cones come out flaky and crispy without a cooling-down period. A mechanical arm picks up paper sleeves and drops them in front of the cones.
These cones are now on their way to an ice cream stand near you, where they'll be used to scoop up ice cream lickety-split.
