Isn't ice cream frozen custard anyway?

"Bulla’s new Frozen Custard is made with fresh and locally sourced milk, cream and egg yolks, creating a delectable treat for all occasions." Bulla website

There seems to be a major advertising campaign going on at the moment for Bulla's 'new' Custard on a stick - as shown above. It's a refinement of their Frozen Custard. Our local Woolworths had posts outside the entrance with big slogans and I have seen other large posters here and there too.

And just to emphasise the trend, Cadbury also have something called Cadbury Creme Egg. The differentiating words that are not normally shown on ice cream tubs are eggs and custard. Well you need eggs to make custard.

cadbury ice cream

cadbury creme egg

'New' is always there in big letters on the Bulla ads. Well I guess it is new in that it's a new product for Bulla, but surely it's not a new idea?

I must admit my first thought on seeing this was the title of this post. Isn't ice cream (proper classy ice cream that is) just frozen custard anyway? I think I have probably only made ice cream with an egg custard once or twice, basically because it's too much bother and I am one of the world's lazy people. But nevertheless I always thought that really good ice-cream had eggs in it. Well not necessarily apparently.

The ever-reliable Felicity Cloake dissects the whole process, turning to ice cream gurus such as Morfudd Richards (yes she is an authority apparently) and Heston Blumenthal, who says:

"all ice creams are made of five key ingredients: ice crystals, fat, sugar, air and 'other solids', including the proteins and minerals contained in the milk. Most will also include an emulsifier, such as xanthan gum (in the case of mass-produced ice cream) or egg yolk, in more traditional recipes. Only the simplest, 'Philadelphia-style' ices, which are really just flavoured creams, scorn such luxuries." Heston Blumenthal

And Felicity's other expert Morfudd Richards, says much the same:

"'speedy ices', have a tendency to be slightly grainier than the standard custard-based ice, "due to the lack of egg yolks to emulsify the mix". Morfudd Richards

And I have to admit that the ice creams I have made are a tiny bit grainy - they tend to be of the frozen cream or yoghurt type. Mind you even Heston Blumenthal seems to think that you don't necessarily have to have eggs. But he does think that:

"ice creams should be clean, they should melt in the mouth really easily". Heston Blumenthal

And Felicity Cloake seems to think you need to go a bit easy on the eggs or the ice cream will taste too eggy. And they should probably look something like this:

But going back to our commercial 'new' frozen custards, it seems that this is just commerce picking up on a café trend. Frozen custard is a big thing in Melbourne according to the Urban List website. And the Melbourne guru from Laurie Dee's explains that it's all in the way it's churned, not necessarily in the ingredients.

"Frozen custard is a super premium ice cream made with milk, cream and a small percentage of egg yolk. It differs from regular ice cream in a variety of ways. Firstly, frozen custard is churned in a continuous freezer as opposed to a batch freezer for regular ice cream, which basically means less air is beaten into the finished product. This is what gives frozen custard its smoother and silkier texture over regular ice cream. Another difference is that frozen custard is generally churned fresh several times a day at the point of sale. This is rarely achieved with regular ice cream." Laurie di Tomasso

Doubtless frozen custard costs more than ice cream which, in turn costs more than ice confections. I think ice cream has to have cream in it. So maybe next time I am buying ice cream - yes I buy it more than I make it - I should try the frozen custard. Felicity Cloake's recipe for the perfect ice cream contains what she though was the secret ingredient - gained from Heston Blumenthal - skimmed milk powder. Now who would have thought that. You can find the recipe here.

And Cadbury's product says it is 'ice cream with a Cadbury creme egg flavoured sauce'. Now I don't think that's a very carefully worded bit of advertising. It implies egg flavoured. Surely that's not what they mean? Am I missing something - is there something called a creme egg? It is Easter soon after all. Egg is not a particularly tempting flavour when it comes to ice cream is it? Surely they mean the sauce is enriched with egg. Anyway it's not frozen custard is it?

And I have to say that every time I see anything about making ice cream I feel guilty because I have a pretty good ice-cream making machine which rarely gets used - even for non frozen custard ice creams. Maybe I should give Felicity Cloake's recipe a go. And Delia, in her Summer Cooking book has several very tempting ice creams. Maybe for my son's birthday on Saturday when it's hot, hot, hot.