Chemistry In My Daily Life: What makes your heart melts?

What makes your heart melts? For me, the answer is ICE CREAM~!

Isn't it so tempting and seducing? XD

Well, I believe that every kid loves ice cream, me too! Even until now, I still love ice cream. If you ask me, what's so great about ice cream? I would say the creamy texture and the chilling sensation of it, that melts my heart everytime I eat an ice cream! =P

Don't eat me~ Sob sob~

If I ask you, 'What's an ice cream?'. What will you answer? Think about it. Haha. Before I wrote this post, I most probably will say that ice cream is a type of sweet food keep in refrigerator or the big blue ice box =P If you only know how to eat ~~like me~~, then you should really continue reading ~~and click the advertisement at the right side~~ =X

What's in ice cream?

Ice cream is basically composed from milk, cream, sweeteners (syrup or sugar), flavorings, emulsifiers, stabilizers, milk solids, and milk fat.

Milk fat is the ingredient that gives ice cream it's unique richness, creamy and smooth texture. For your information, the higher the content of milk fat, the smoother the texture of ice cream. Despite the high calorie content of milk fat, many premium brands ice cream have as much as 16% of this component.

So, don't complain next time when you eat a bad texture ice cream, perhaps it contains less milk fat =D

Why ice cream freezes into chilling cream instead of hard solid ice?

Before the freezing process, 20-50% of ice cream is air whipped into the mix, forming tiny air bubbles between the ice cream mix. Ice cream is a colloid (a type of emulsion). In ice cream, molecules of fat are suspended in a water-sugar-ice structure along with air bubbles. The presence of air means that ice cream is also technically a foam. A colloid is stable, so one substance does not settle out of the other.

The picture below shows the formation of colloidal structure of ice cream.

This colloidal structure also gives ice cream the ability to be scooped and chewed with ease =D

Another picture of ice cream to give you strength to continue reading =P

Ice crystal in ice cream and it's freezing point?

Ice crystal is another major component of ice cream that begin to form when the mixture is cooled after whipping. It plays an important role to keep the cooling and chilling sensation of ice cream. Ice cream mix won't freeze at 0°C due to the sugar concentration in it. It has to be cooled to even lower temperatures before any crystals form.

This is known as 'freezing point depression' or 'colligative theory'. As water form ice crystal, the sugar concentration in the solution increases, depressing the freezing point further (refer to the picture below). In fact, although ice cream is typically served at temperature of -16°C, only 72% of the water component is frozen. The rest remains as a very concentrated sugar solution.