texture.

[56] Too much lactose will result in a non ideal texture because of either excessive freezing point
depression or lactose crystallization.[57]

Production

A Boku Europa ice cream maker in Aachen, Germany

Before the development of modern refrigeration, ice cream was a luxury reserved for special occasions.
Making it was quite laborious; ice was cut from lakes and ponds during the winter and stored in holes in
the ground, or in wood-frame or brick ice houses, insulated by straw. Many farmers and plantation
owners, including U.S. Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, cut and stored ice in the
winter for use in the summer. Frederic Tudor of Boston turned ice harvesting and shipping into a big
business, cutting ice in New England and shipping it around the world.

Ice cream was made by hand in a large bowl placed inside a tub filled with ice and salt. This is called the
pot-freezer method.[58] French confectioners refined the pot-freezer method, making ice cream in a
sorbetière [fr] (a covered pail with a handle attached to the lid). In the pot-freezer method, the
temperature of the ingredients is reduced by the mixture of crushed ice and salt. The salt water is
cooled by the ice, and the action of the salt on the ice causes it to (partially) melt, absorbing latent heat
and bringing the mixture below the freezing point of pure water. The immersed container can also make
better thermal contact with the salty water and ice mixture than it could with ice alone.

The hand-cranked churn, which also uses ice and salt for cooling, replaced the pot-freezer method. The
exact origin of the hand-cranked freezer is unknown, but the first U.S. patent for one was #3254 issued
to Nancy Johnson on 9 September 1843. The hand-cranked churn produced smoother ice cream than
the pot freezer and did it quicker. Many inventors patented improvements on Johnson's design.

In Europe and early America, ice cream was made and sold by small businesses, mostly confectioners
and caterers. Jacob Fussell of Baltimore, Maryland was the first to manufacture ice cream on a large
scale. Fussell bought fresh dairy products from farmers in York County, Pennsylvania, and sold them in
Baltimore. An unstable demand for his dairy products often left him with a surplus of cream, which he
made into ice cream. He built his first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania, in 1851. Two
years later, he moved his factory to Baltimore. Later, he opened factories in several other cities and
taught the business to others, who operated their own plants. Mass production reduced the cost of ice
cream and added to its popularity.

An ice cream factory in Los Angeles

The development of industrial refrigeration by German engineer Carl von Linde during the 1870s
eliminated the need to cut and store natural ice, and, when the continuous-process freezer was
perfected in 1926, commercial mass production of ice cream and the birth of the modern ice cream
industry was underway.

In modern times, a common method for producing ice cream at home is to use an ice cream maker, an
electrical device that churns the ice cream mixture while cooled inside a household freezer. Some more
expensive models have an built-in freezing element. A newer method is to add liquid nitrogen to the
mixture while stirring it using a spoon or spatula for a few seconds; a similar technique, advocated by
Heston Blumenthal as ideal for home cooks, is to add dry ice to the mixture while stirring for a few
minutes.[59] Some ice cream recipes call for making a custard, folding in whipped cream, and
immediately freezing the mixture.[citation needed] Another method is to use a pre-frozen solution of
salt and water, which gradually melts as the ice cream freezes.

An unusual method of making ice cream was done during World War II by American fighter pilots based
in the South Pacific. They attached pairs of 5-US-gallon (19 L) cans to their aircraft. The cans were fitted
with a small propeller, this was spun by the slipstream and drove a stirrer, which agitated the mixture
while the intense cold of high altitude froze it.[60] B-17 crews in Europe did something similar on their
bombing runs as did others.[61][62]

Retail sales

Selection of ice cream flavors available at an ice cream shop in Fruitland Park, Florida

Ice cream can be mass-produced and thus is widely available in developed parts of the world. Ice cream
can be purchased in large cartons (vats and squrounds) from supermarkets and grocery stores, in
smaller quantities from ice cream shops, convenience stores, and milk bars, and in individual servings
from small carts or vans at public events. In 2015, the US produced nearly 900 million US gallons
(3.4×109 L; 750,000,000 imp gal) of ice cream.[63]

Specialty job

A bicycle-based ice cream street vendor in Indonesia

Today, jobs specialize in the selling of ice cream. The title of a person who works in this speciality is
often called an 'ice cream man', however women also specialize in the selling of ice cream. People in this
line of work often sell ice cream on beaches. On beaches, ice cream is either sold by a person who
carries a box full of ice cream and is called over by people who want to purchase ice cream, or by a
person who drives up to the top of the beach and rings a bell. In the second method, people go up to
the top of the beach and purchase ice cream straight from the ice cream seller, who is often in an ice
cream van. In Turkey and Australia, ice cream is sometimes sold to beach-goers from small powerboats
equipped with chest freezers.

Ice cream van vendor delivery

Some ice cream distributors sell ice cream products from travelling refrigerated vans or carts (commonly
referred to in the US as "ice cream trucks"), sometimes equipped with speakers playing children's music
or folk melodies (such as "Turkey in the Straw"). The driver of an ice cream van drives throughout
neighbourhoods and stops every so often, usually every block. The seller on the ice cream van sells the
ice cream through a large window; this window is also where the customer asks for ice cream and pays.
Ice cream vans in the United Kingdom make a music box noise rather than actual music.

Ingredients and standard quality definitions

Black sesame soft ice cream, Japan

Many countries have regulations controlling what can be described as ice cream.

In the U.S., the FDA rules state that to be described as "ice cream", a product must have the following
composition:[64]
greater than 10% milk fat

6 to 10% milk and non-fat milk solids: this component, also known as the milk solids-not-fat or serum
solids, contains the proteins (caseins and whey proteins) and carbohydrates (lactose) found in milk