Difference Between Ice-cream and Sherbet

Ice-cream vs Sherbet

Ice cream is a popular semi-frozen dairy product, often eaten as dessert, and popularly known as ‘the great American dessert’. It is primarily made of milk, cream, sugar and some flavoring, as the major ingredients for its most basic form. However, with time, many recipes have been formulated that include other ingredients, like eggs, fruits and colorings.

The term ice-cream has varying shades of meanings, depending on the country; or at times, the names may just be referring to the various styles it can be presented, for instance, frozen yoghurt, sorbet, sherbet, frozen custard, and gelato. Sherbet is very similar to sorbet, but unlike sorbet, it contains a very miniature amount of milk (about 1.2%), while sorbet doesn’t contain any milk or other dairy products. Outside the US, sherbet and sorbet varieties are essentially the same thing, but within US consumption, sherbet contains some kind of dairy product in small quantities, for example, cream, milk-fat or butterfat; typically, the milk-fat content does not exceed 3 percent.

Ice-cream is categorized into the following sub-types, namely: Premium, regular, economy, light and reduced-fat ice-cream. Premium ice-cream contains 11to 15 percent butterfat, which means it’s more dense, and has a higher calorie count as well. It is especially popular for its ‘gourmet’ flavoring. While the economy type contains exactly 10 percent butterfat, the regular type contains between 10 and 11 percent butterfat. The flavorings used are standard, and this type is typically used for milkshakes. Light ice-cream contains 50 percent less butterfat than regular ice-cream, while reduced-fat is stipulated to have 25 percent less fat than regular ice-cream.

Sherbet is a fruit-based ‘ice-cream’, made by mixing fruit puree and flavorings with either 2 percent, or less, butterfat. Generally, ice-cream and sherbet are made by a similar process, and are only differentiated by the ingredients that go into either product.

Sherbet is made by mixing fruit juice, fruits, some flavorings, a stabilizer like vegetable gum, and a little cream. The mixture is heated at very high temperature (very briefly) to enhance the flavors and quality of the final dessert. To make the contents have a uniform texture, the mixture is homogenized and then cooled, and kept for a few hours so that it can ‘age’. The mixture is then frozen, first with agitation until partially frozen, and then without agitation to harden the final product.

Summary:
Ice-cream contains almost 50 percent milk or cream, while sherbet contains a maximum of 2% cream or milk.
Ice-cream is based on a dairy product, like milk, cream or butterfat, while sherbet is based on fruit puree.
Ice-cream is categorized into five styles based on its butterfat content, while sherbet has only one style of categorization.

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