The Ingredients Of Mixes For Soft Ice-Cream Making

Mixes for softies are blends of ingredients designed to provide a creamy texture and uniform flavor. Among their key elements we can find emulsifiers which help stabilizing the mix of water and fats while keeping the structure of ice cream stable and preventing it from crystalizing. Stabilizers like guar gum and cellulose gum contribute to maintaining a soft and creamy texture, while flavorings are accurately selected to provide an excellent taste.

Among our mixes for making softies, for instance, you can find many flavored mixes – chocolate-, strawberry- and lemon-flavored mixes alongside with more traditional options like fiordilatte and vanilla that can be employed in a highly flexible way with a whole range of ice-cream toppings.

What Are The Advantages of Soft Ice Cream Compared To Traditional Gelato?

Soft ice cream offers a series of advantages as compared to traditional ice cream. First of all, its consistency is much softer and creamier due to the usage of emulsifiers and stabilizers that make it less cold, therefore gentler on the palate. Moreover, its soft texture allows for a more uniform layout in the ice-cream cone or cup, producing a more consistent and enveloping tasting experience.

Mixes For Softies vs. ‘Standard’ Ice-Cream Bases: Do We Really Need To Choose?

For many ice-cream parlors, it is customary to use both mixes for softies and ice-cream bases. Some parlors indeed opt for using both products so as to meet the needs of a wider target of clients, while others prefer focusing solely on one single variety of ice-cream and specialize on it vertically. The choice ultimately depends on your clientele’s preferences and your commercial objectives. Whereas traditional gelato provides a unique artisanal quality and tasting experience, softies are appreciated for their practicality and uniform consistency.

However, the key to success lies in offering high quality products that can meet the expectations of your customers. Discover the whole range of Gelatitalia mixes for soft ice-cream making and get in touch with us for more information.

Spring Trends: What Do Customers Expect From Your Ice-Cream Parlor?

Spring comes with a renewal of colors and flavors, inspiring new ideas to garnish ice creams in a captivating and delicious way. The usage of fresh, seasonal ingredients, such as strawberries, kiwis or mango, is a common way of creating vibrant toppings that add a note of freshness to ice creams in spring.

And yet, running an ice-cream parlor also means finding solutions that while being no less tasty, provide more durability and allow to standardize the taste of one’s products in comparison to using fresh ingredients. Here is where jell, fluid and crumble decorations come to rescue.

Creative Fluid Toppings For Spring Ice Creams

Ice-cream toppings play a key role in making ice creams irresistible. Colorful, easy to use and very durable, they are the quickest way to secure an original garnish for your artisanal gelato that is always available for you.

This spring, dare experiment with all the combinations unlocked by our arsenal: maybe a strawberry topping with a dark chocolate ice-cream (try out our Tao bases!), or a caramel topping with rich and creamy ice cream flavors like hazelnut, cream or peanut butter. The important thing is to create contrasts of texture and flavor that excite the senses and leave a lasting impression.

Crumbles To Lure Customers Into Trying Seasonal Ice Creams

Crumble toppings, with their crunchy texture and rounded taste, are the ideal addition to enrich your spring ice creams. For a taste experience that will vanquish the hearts of any client, experiment with crumble toppings made with nuts or cookies to add a flavory touch to your frozen desserts.

You can use our nut-based crumble toppings and the other ice-cream garnishes to embellish your cakes and parfaits too: from caramel to wild berries, from lemon to pistachio, in our catalog you’re sure to find the most suitable option for you to create crunchy flavors to celebrate your parlor’s seasonal reopening. An appetizing example? A velvety white chocolate base topped with a Speculoos cookies crumble sprinkled generously for a mouthcoating effect. And remember: all our crumble toppings are gluten free.

Garnishes For Ice Creams With An Artistic Soul

Ice-cream garnishes are the cherry on top for your spring flavors. Opt for light, fruity toppings, such as strawberry or passion fruit, to add a fresh and lively note to your ice creams. Combine them with citrus fruit ice-cream bases for a refreshening effect and play with shapes and designs when garnishing the ice creams in your cabinets and cups: swirls, quick sketches and colorful layers will give your products a fascinating outlook that will encourage your clients to taste them.

In our catalog, you can find a rich variety of fruit and cream garnishes in many traditional and less common flavors: from the deep notes of blackberries and gianduia to the enveloping ones of salted toffee, our products will enable you to play any symphony of taste you have in mind.

Don’t be afraid of experimenting, cherish spring with style and creativity in you ice-cream making lab and let your ice creams speak for themselves: with Gelatitalia’s garnishes and toppings, matched with our ice-cream bases, you will be able to devise a whole new series of creative spring flavors and conquer the hearts and palates of any customer crossing the threshold of your parlor.

One more piece of advice? Have professional photos of your new spring flavors taken and share them on social media: you’ll be reaching even more people and their constant feedback will help you make your offer even better.

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How Did We Develop Gelatitalia LAB Line?

Gelatitalia LAB is the latest novelty in our catalog, designed in partnership with Maestro Eugenio Morrone, a renowned professional in our field who, like us, has shaped his whole career in the art of ice-cream making around the principles of genuineness, straightforwardness and seasonality.

The guiding principles of this outstanding chef glacier, owner of the famous Il Cannolo Siciliano bakery and ice-cream parlor in the heart of Rome, first-ranker in the 2022 Hall of Fame Gelato World Ranking, are tantamount to the ones that have always characterized our company and which we will keep on sticking to throughout 2024: our resolution for the new year is to continue using selected raw materials, transferring all their natural goodness into ice creams with a clean, clear label and a definite, intense flavor.

2024 Gelatitalia LAB Line

If you, like us, think that ice-cream making will move more and more towards product quality and genuineness, rewarding those of us who will be able to integrate such principles into lines of products that are unfailingly solid both as ethics and taste are concerned, then you should definitely bet on our 2024 Gelatitalia LAB line: the natural continuation and evolution of a journey we began many years ago when we started our line of ice-cream pastes called I Puri, made by simply toasting selected nuts like Piemonte hazelnuts, Bronte pistachios and Viterbo hazelnuts with no added ingredients. Short labels are our strong suit!

Discover More About Our Line, Live!

During the months of January and February we will be bringing our new line on tour in 12 Italian cities to as many exclusive events. They will take place in the cities of Rimini, Pescara, Bari, Lecce, Naples, Catanzaro, Catania, Rome, Florence, Savona, Milan and Cagliari and we will be joined by Maestro Morrone. An unmissable opportunity for professionals to understand the complex mechanisms that lead to designing each new line in our catalog of semifinished products for ice-cream making. Get in touch with us to discover more about our events!

Chocolate-Based Products For Ice-Cream Aficionados In Winter

Richer and more rounded flavors are clearly more suitable for the cold season. Those of your customers who can’t give up on ice cream in winter will benefit from a reduction of your ice-cream cabinets and the replacement of fresh and light textures with more velvety consistencies, chocolate flavors under the spotlight.

We’re using the plural, flavors, intentionally, since there is nothing more varied than chocolate: different cacao beans offer completely opposed aromatic profiles, as proven by our selection of bases for chocolate ice cream that span from the vanilla scent of white chocolate to the flowery notes of Dominican beans, and encompass a whole range of slightly to strongly toasted, slightly to strongly acidic profiles. Our Tao bases, made with single-origin cocoa, are also lactose- and dairy-free, therefore safe for all your vegan and intolerant customers.

In addition, if you’re considering venturing into something new, namely offering coffee-shop products in your ice-cream parlor without equipping your outlet with cumbersome or fancy appliances, you can opt for our quality powder mixes for hot cocoa – a quick fix to an oldie but goldie.

Parfaits As An Alternative For Customers Sensitive To The Cold

In the heart of winter, your clients may feel uncomfortable with an ice-cream cone in their hands. Parfaits are a good alternative for those of your customers who are more sensitive to the cold because they are served at a definitely more agreeable temperature; moreover, this dessert is more likely to be eaten by sitting customers, in the cozy, relaxed and warm atmosphere they look forward to during these months.

In order to make your cold desserts, you can rely on our bases for parfaits and mousses: their neutral taste will allow all additional flavors to stand out, while the balance of ingredients in the mixes will give your desserts a light and velvety texture. Our catalog also includes lactose-free options for your intolerant clients, and stabilizers to optimize the consistency of your preparations.

More Ideas For Your Ice-Cream Parlor In Winter

Celebrate Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, as well as Saint Valentine’s Day later on in the winter, with seasonal ice-cream flavors inspired by the ongoing holiday. Or, if you want to provide your customers with products that are less immediately connected with the summertime and let them bypass the mental hurdle of ice cream in winter, tap into our inventory of mixes for the making of milk puddings and custards and customize their flavor with our colorful taste enhancers and toppings.

Alternatively, you can try out our brand new Lebù, a handy, long-life solution to create up to 5 different tiramisu-flavored desserts: the product comes with detailed instructions as to how to use it to make not only traditional and soft ice creams, but also cold creams, parfaits and milk puddings that scrumptiously taste like coffee, mascarpone cheese and ladyfingers so to expand and vary your parlor’s seasonal offer.

Finally, there is one more way to go this winter: strike up collabs with local activities and get involved in themed events such as tasting experiences or ice-cream/hot drinks pairing workshops. That’s an idea that is sure to contribute to the success of your business all through the winter, if properly promoted and advertised.

All The Advantages of Slushie Mixes

The key asset of slushie machine mixes is the fact that they can be conveniently stored so as to enable you to sell slushies to your customers also in colder months. Not only will this approach unlock new business opportunities for you, but it will also make a sustainable investment for your outlet.

Being able to preserve your slushie mixes for a long time allows you to avoid excessive waste since you will be using as little product you need each time, therefore not having to throw away perishable fresh ingredients anymore. This will not just cut down on your expenses, but also stand proof to your pledge towards sustainability, a commitment which is evermore appreciated by your environmentally conscious customers.

The range of Gelatitalia’s products spans across a great variety of flavors, classical as well as tropical, and also includes mixes for the making of true Sicilian slushies by the book – a way of unleashing your creativity and meeting the deepst desires of your clients. Through this strategy, you will be able to make the best out of your professional slushie machine even during colder months, contributing to your income and boosting your loyalty marketing.

Alternatively, our neutral slushie mix will give you the kind of flexibility you need in order to create a wide range of flavors and combinations, enabling you to meet your clients’ demands and to offer a unique experience. The neutral mix you will find in Gelatitalia’s catalog can be combined with our ready-to-serve flavor enhancers to customize the taste of your slushie.

How To Pick & Use Slushie Machine Mixes

Still unfamiliar with these products? Here are a few tips to use professional slushie mixes effectively:

1. Choose high quality slushie mixes: only choose slushie mixes sold by reliable, renown suppliers; opting for high quality products will grant you a great base for your slushies, and allow you to create irresistible flavors that can be faithfully replicated day by day;
2. Diversify your offer: provide your clients with a wide range of flavors by tapping into Gelatitalia’s rich catalog or use our neutral slushie mix to experiment with personalized flavors so as to attract an even wider, curious clientele; our flavor enhancers will help you push yourself even further with combinations and variations;
3. Follow the right recipes: measuring out ingredients correctly is essential to giving your slushies the desired taste and texture; Gelatitalia provides you with complete, thorough recipes to get the best results from your professional slushie machine;
4. Look for taste balance: although your clients surely have a sweet tooth, a balance of taste in your slushie will make it more rounded and enjoyable for them; consider adding sour ingredients such as citrus fruits to balance sweetness and to offer more sophisticated taste experiences.

Finally, remember to provide your staff with detailed instructions as to how to correctly use slushie mixes and take good care of machines, cleaning them regularly to extend the life of the appliance and make sure the products you make always have the same quality over time.

Ice Creams For Lactose Intolerants Made Easy With The Vegan Base

Let’s (literally) start from bases: Gelatitalia’s new Vegan Base is the ideal option to prepare artisanal lactose-free ice creams: this powder base, added with water only, guarantees a light and compact texture, thus creating a product that is perfect for those among your customers who love the planet and who care about their wellbeing.

Moreover, the Vegan Base is a source of fiber and therefore makes a nutritional and tasty option. Try it out with fresh fruit or pastes made with nuts! Another suitable option for lactose intolerants is our Elisa Base, an easily digestible complete base that can be prepared with the only addition of water just like the Vegan Base.

Complet Lime: A Bold Move For Your Summer

Milk-free ice-cream flavors comprise almost all fruit ice creams (the exceptions, like coconut ice cream, can be counted on the fingers of one hand). This summer, though, why don’t you do something new and add an unusual flavor to your range of vegan ice creams? Gelatitalia’s new offer includes Complet Lime, a complete powder base for lime-flavored ice creams with a fresh, exotic and delicately sour aroma.

This unique flavor will add a fresh and original note to your creation, offering you a bold lactose-free alternative. If you own a café also serving ice creams, you may want to combine this ice cream with cocktails and refreshing drinks, a way for your customers to fight the heat wave and dream of tropical beaches for a while!

Mediterranean Inspirations: The Kalopita Lactose-Free Paste

Speaking of dreamlike destinations, may we tempt you with our Kalopita ice-cream paste? This is a paste inspired by Portokalopita, an orange-flavored Greek dessert that will infuse some Hellenic spirit into your creations. Sweet, yet balanced, the Kalopita Paste is featured by a fresh and scrumptious taste that will win your heat-stricken customers over. Combine it with our Vegan Paste for an exquisite Italian-style or, rather, Mediterranean-style completely lactose-free ice cream!

Beyond Ice Creams: Bases For Lactose-Free Parfaits Making

Once you have fixed your ice-cream parlor’s cabinets, it’s time to take care of your fridge! Gelatitalia Dalia base for parfaits allows you to enrich your offer of takeaway desserts with something capable of meeting the needs of all your customers: lactose-free, light and velvety, Dalia is a base allowing the aromas in your desserts to stand out and be fully appreciated. Its neutral taste allows the natural taste of your ingredients to stand out, unlocking an extraordinary taste experience.

Lactose-Free Semifinished Products For Artisanal Ice-Cream Parlors: discover more!

Have you enjoyed our proposals for your ice-cream parlor? Discover more about our summer 2023 offer by taking a look at our online catalog or contact us to get support: by choosing Gelatitalia, you will be able to grant your customers a variety of high quality milk-free ice-cream flavors, delicious and free of any unpleasant ‘side effects’. Enlarge your offer and reach a wider audience, including lactose intolerants, with us!

Does Vegan Ice Cream Make You Fat?

There is this old urban legend going on according to which vegan ice cream would be more likely to make people fat – but is that really so? This myth probably stems from the habit of associating vegan ice cream with the products that can be purchased from mass retailers, which are made with low-quality ingredients or are rich in hydrogenated fats.

Conversely, if we keep artisanal ice-cream parlors in mind, the care they pour into vegan ice-cream making is the same they employ for traditional milk-based ice creams: whether one starts from scratch or employs powder mixes to be later added with fresh fruit, pastes or other ingredients, the two ice-cream making processes are no different in terms of the quality of the raw ingredients, and the effort made to achieve the right texture and palatability is identical.

Either vegan or not, ice creams are surely a food that needs to be consumed with moderation, but if one had to make a comparison, then the lack of milk and eggs would basically make the calorie count of plant-based ice creams lower than that of ice creams containing animal-based ingredients.

Vegan Ice-Cream Bases: How To Recognize Them?

When it comes to vegan ice-cream bases, there are two main categories of products: the former comprises those mixes that can be used with the only addition of water, such as our Vegan complete base or the products in our TAO line. These bases are used to make most fruit-based ice creams alongside with some other traditional flavors. The latter class of products has been developed over time to provide one more valuable substitute for milk-based mixes, and it includes soy ice-cream bases.

Both types of bases generally have quite a neutral taste that can be personalized through the employment of pastes or fruit so as to recreate the whole range of flavors of traditional ice cream, as well as its structure and texture. Soy allows to reproduce the texture of traditional artisanal ice cream perfectly; on the other hand, though, it can pose dangers for allergic people.

Pros of Vegan Ice-Cream Bases

Neither the quality nor flavor of vegan ice cream therefore have anything less than traditional ice cream, given that you resort to reliable suppliers who can give provide you with high quality, versatile solutions – as, for instance, our high-fiber bases which include Salus Frutta, a base for making low-sugar, high digestibility vegan ice cream.

Thanks to this class of products, you will be enabled to make artisanal ice creams that are as qualitative as ever, but are also more inclusive and respectful of your clients’ health. Considering that some of our products, such as Friofrutta 50, can also be processed with the cold method, thus positively impacting your parlor’s energy consumption, it becomes even clearer how adding vegan ice-cream bases to your chef glacier’s tools of the trade can only be a winning choice.

Contact us to know more about our offer of vegan products!

The Role of Powder Products In Expense Amortization

One of the most effective strategies to amortize your parlor’s expenses involves the usage of complete powder products that can help you speed up preparation processes and make them easier, thus making the whole parlor more efficient. Of course, it is crucial to rely on companies that can provide you with selected quality products processed so as not to jeopardize their organoleptic properties.

For instance, Gelatitalia’s Complet line is a range of products that allows you to create several different ice-cream flavors, both fruit- and milk-based, while achieving a significant cut on the cost for the purchase of fresh fruit and reducing the need for supplies. The products in our Complet line can also be used with the cold processing, which allows you to lower your energy bill.

Tools & Appliances For Ice-Cream Parlors: Can Prices Be Lowered?

Using efficient appliances and tools is another key element for the reduction of your parlor’s management costs. In a nutshell – the more you pay, the less you pay: making a bigger investment at the beginning is a strategy that will pay you off in the long term because your processes will be made more efficient; moreover, the better quality and sturdiness of your appliances will translate in a less frequent need of maintenance, thus fewer expenses and losses of time that may disrupt your schedules and make your losses of money even worse.

In conclusion, to successfully manage an ice-cream parlor you need to be able to take into account all the aspects of your business and achieve good results on the financial, as well as on the operational level and make sure your customers are always satisfied with you. Alongside with the quality of the ice-cream mixes you use, you can make a difference also by providing customers with a variety of flavors, by taking care of them with kindness, professionalism and promptness, by thoroughly complying with the health and hygiene regulations and by hiring somebody who can deal with your company’s online and offline promotion. All of this translates in an optimization of your processes and assets, hence in money savings.

However, only by staying up to date with all the trends in this field and the ways of managing your business with prudence can you reduce expenses while still offering a qualitative and ever-changing service. Come back here for new ideas to make your ice-cream parlor grow!

1.    Naturalat, The Fundamental Ice-Cream Base

Let’s start from a product that no ice-cream maker can live without: a milk-based ice-cream mix. Naturalat is our aroma-free base employable for the making of any flavor in your ice-cream cabinets – it is rich in powdered skimmed milk, which allows you to obtain a velvety and rounded texture that doesn’t feel too icy on the palate. Available for 100g and 150g dosages, it doesn’t contain vegetable fats and it is indeed one of Gelatitalia’s most widely loved bases due to its flexibility and old-fashioned creamy consistency.

2.    Friofrutta, The Benchmark for Fruit Ice-Cream Bases

The employment of high quality bases in artisanal ice-cream making is also of paramount importance when it comes to fruit ice creams. The perfect base enables you to enhance all the natural flavor of the raw materials and other ingredients you combine it with, such as fresh or frozen fruit and ice-cream pastes. One such base is Friofrutta, a delicately flavored ice-cream base that can be used with the cold processing technique by adding a liter of water every 50 grams of product.

Since it doesn’t require any milk, but water only, it is suitable for lactose-intolerant and vegan clients. It is also gluten-free, therefore safe for customers who suffer from celiac disease, provided that you comply with HACCP regulations and avoid contaminations in your parlor.

3.    Elisa, Our Trademark Lactose-Free Ice-Cream Base

There are many people around the world now who have been tested intolerant to lactose at various degrees. This is reason enough to get a lactose-free powder mix for ice-cream making in your parlor – a step towards inclusivity, to empowering all your lactose-intolerant customers to enjoy a good old hearty ice cream just like anybody else. Our Elisa complete base stems from our specific design of offering high-digestibility ice creams that are at the same time as rich and velvety as traditional creams.

To use this base, you will just have to add 2.6-2.8 liters of water every 1.5 kg of powder mix. You will then be able to experiment with your ice cream combining the base with any of our products to create a wide variety of flavors. Once again, a versatile and inclusive choice for top notch ice-cream parlors.

Already tried out one or all of our Top 3 Picks? Let us know what are the Gelatitalia products you can’t do without anymore!

The Traditional Method: The Ice-Cream Hot Processing

The hot processing of ice cream is the traditional method for making ice cream, the one that has been in use for ages to create this very popular dessert. Such method requires you to heat up all the base ingredients to a temperature of about 85°C for half an hour (the so called HTST pasteurization) or to a temperature of 65°C for half an hour (low-temperature pasteurization), then cool it down immediately to 4°C; this way, you can reduce the proliferation of microorganisms. Subsequently, the mix is let sit at the same temperature and then blended – by so doing, it freezes while incorporating air, so that it acquires the typical creamy consistency of ice cream.

One of the main advantages of this ice-cream making process is microbiological safety, together with the fact that it allows you to get a stable emulsion, as all the components are dissolved and interacting perfectly together. The disadvantages are the long preparation time – considering the phases of pasteurization, cooling down, maturation and blending – and the elevated electricity expenses.

The New Method: The Ice-Cream Cold Processing

The cold processing of ice cream is, on the other hand, a relatively new technique that is spreading more and more around the world. In this method, the ingredients are dissolved in a liquid – either water, milk or cream, heated up if need be – and perfectly blended with a mixer; the mix is then let sit for at least 30 minutes in the fridge and subsequently blended.

The cold processing offers a greater flexibility in the making of customized flavors, while allowing ice-cream makers to use fresh and natural ingredients without compromising the quality of their final product. Moreover, the whole process is quicker to be completed, thus resulting in lower expenses on electricity within the ice-cream parlor premises.

Cold-Processable Ice-Cream Bases: Know Before You Use

When working with cold-processable ice-cream bases, it is vital for you to be careful with cleanliness and hygiene, as the lack of pasteurization in this method paves the way for the proliferation of bacteria. Therefore, always comply with the national and international safety and hygiene regulations on food so for your final product to be a safe and high-quality one.

Wish to know more about our ice-cream bases that can be processed with the cold method? Read the article we published last month with all our product releases for 2023, including our new ISI ice-cream base!