Almond Milk Based Frozen Dessert Product Development
This project was presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the fourth year of Bachelor of Food Technology with Honours at Massey University with support provided by Massey University, and the help given by Dr Sung Je Lee.
The goal of this project was to develop an optimum formulation for making an almond milk-based frozen dessert which is close in sensory properties to commercially available ice creams as its controls, such as Much Moore vanilla dreamie ice cream and Like Licks almond and raspberry frozen dessert. The popularity of almond nuts has increased overtime as it has been processed into a range of different products, such as almond butter, almond milk, almond oil and almond desserts. As ice cream is a beloved indulgence in New Zealand, people catching on to an almond frozen dessert that is dairy free, vegan and gluten free would be unsurprising. Despite the increasing in popularity of dairy free frozen desserts, there is lack of research, understanding and experimentation conducted particularly on almond frozen desserts made similar to dairy ice cream.
This project focused on bridging some knowledge gaps by exploring the use of almond butter and almond milk to replace the main ingredient traditionally used in making ice creams which is dairy milk. This involved making of a base formulation and adjusting factors for a consumer acceptability analysis. The product with the highest acceptability was used for testing and compared against its controls. Testing included particle size distribution, viscosity, texture and body, melting rates and overrun.
General production process of ice cream by The New Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers Association
SPSS was used to produce formulations with varying factors in almond milk, almond butter and changes in ageing process. Consumer acceptability was used to help decide on one formulation for testing.
Particle size distribution analysis
The particle size has an significant impact on mouthfeel, melting behavior and ease of scooping. The distribution has an impact on shelf life. The Mastersizer 2000 was used with the dispersant of canola oil and a refractive index of 1.33
Viscosity
Ice creams portray a shear thinning and pseudo plastic behavior. A high viscosity is desirable as this is representable of the melt in mouth feel and mouth coating. The Advantage Rheometer was used with a 40mm parallel plate to measure the viscosity at 20 degrees C
Melting rate
High quality ice cream show little resistance to heat when exposed to room temperature for at least 10-15 minutes. Ice cream with low overrun melt rapidly. To measure this, the ice creams were placed on top of a mesh screen and with a tray underneath it. The weight of the tray was measured every 5 minutes until all the ice cream was melted.
Body and texture
The hardness is influenced by ice phase volume, ice crystal size, overrun, fat destabilization, and the rheological properties of the mix. The TA.XT plus texture analyser was used with a 25mm diameter cylindrical probe to measure the hardness at 20 degrees C
Almond frozen dessert (final product)
The results of my almond frozen dessert formulation was similar to commercial Like Licks almond and raspberry frozen dessert but were not at all similar to Much Moores dairy ice cream. This is due to the nature and source of the fat and solids from dairy free milk and almond butter, it was difficult to completely replicate the exact characteristics of dairy ice cream. Despite this, the product received a positive responses and understanding of the conditions of the product.
It was recommended to look into different sources of almond butter, particularly of one process without skin, and consider a combination of dairy free substitutes such as coconut, soy, cashew and/or avocado. It is hoped this study would inform frozen dessert manufactures and product developers an understanding of making an almond milk based frozen dessert.
