At present, it is the golden season for cold drink sales. Children and young people especially like to eat cold drinks. Looking back on my childhood, it seems that I can't avoid customs, and I love to eat all kinds of popsicles. My enthusiasm didn't wane until after work. People are used to the delicious taste of popsicles, ice cream and ice cream, which is beyond doubt. However, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine recently issued regulations requiring that all additives added to food must be marked on the outer packaging without reservation, and the words such as "sweetener", "thickener" and "flavor enhancer" should not be used in combination, which will confuse consumers. As soon as the regulations come out, all food production enterprises dare not neglect, and ice cream production enterprises are no exception. But it doesn't matter if you don't look at the packaging Many consumers are shocked at first sight: just one ice cream needs to add more than a dozen food additives. How big is the ice cream? Are there more additives than main ingredients? For example, on the package of an ice cream product, the following raw materials are marked: phospholipid, poly-castor oil glyceride, maltose, whole milk powder, fructose syrup, maltodextrin, lactic acid, sodium lactate, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, xanthan gum, glyceryl monostearate, guar gum, carrageenan, citric acid, sodium citrate, and edible essence (yogurt essence, blueberry essence). Are those "old popsicles" pure when I was a child? Hehe, people at that time were ignorant and fearless. Although the variety of additives has decreased, the dosage is more uncertain. If nothing else, it is normal to put saccharin, pigment and essence on popsicles. I remember that popsicles were often found to be bitter in the local area at that time. Everyone knows that it is caused by uneven mixing of saccharin, but no one protested, and no one even threw away the bitter popsicle-30 cents for it! Nowadays, popsicles are not willing to throw, mainly popsicles made of saccharin, essence and pigment. With such low technology content, I'm afraid no one dares to sell them brazenly. However, seeing this pile of additives now is really dazzling. To understand these additives, we must first classify them. These additives can be generally divided into four categories: seasoning, coloring, shaping and emulsification, which are all essential ingredients for the taste of ice cream. Coloring: There are two kinds of synthetic pigments-purplish red and bright blue. You can tell by the name that it has something to do with color. Seasoning: there are sweeteners, acidulants and essences. Acidifier: lactic acid, sodium lactate, citric acid, sodium citrate. Sweetener: sodium cyclamate, combined with fructose syrup and maltose, is not an additive, which can reduce the cost while ensuring the sweetness. Flavor: Yogurt flavor and blueberry flavor are both compound flavors, and it is estimated that dozens of compounds have been added to simulate realistic aroma. Shaping: This is the great function of thickener, which is the "skeleton" and "sense of content" of ice cream. There are four thickeners-sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, xanthan gum, guar gum and carrageenan. Thickener can improve the state of ice crystal formation, making ice cream easy to be bitten off and not easy to melt, not to become large ice cubes, and not to melt into running water as soon as it is taken out. At the same time, maltodextrin also has the function of thickening, and a small amount of whole milk powder provides the feeling of milk and plays the role of filling, making ice cream appear rich in content. Emulsification: This is the credit of emulsifier-phospholipid, glyceryl monostearate and glyceryl poly ricinoleate cooperate with each other to make the texture of ice cream uniform, stable and delicate. Without these ingredients, the texture of ice cream can not be uniform, and the frozen state is as hard and unpalatable as large ice cubes, neither sweet nor tasteless, and it is very easy to turn into water; The color is dull and monotonous, and the taste is light and boring ... consumers are not interested in this kind of thing at all. It's better to chew ice and drink some sugar water! Besides ice cream, ice cream also needs similar additives. Thickeners and emulsifiers are necessary. Red, green and green colors come from pigments, while the aroma of most products mainly comes from essence. In terms of safety, thickeners, emulsifiers and acidulants are quite safe. Most of them are normal ingredients in natural foods. Flavors and pigments are mostly chemical synthetic products. If you can't stand these additives, it's not impossible to make your own sorbet according to the above basic ingredients, but it's a bit troublesome. Formula 1: Sweet-scented osmanthus bean paste sorbet; Ingredients: two ounces of red bean paste, one or two ounces of glutinous rice flour, and one spoonful of dried osmanthus. Practice: mix glutinous rice flour with water, cook it into paste, and add osmanthus; Add red bean paste, stir well, air it to room temperature, pour it into popsicle mold, and put it in the quick freezing room of refrigerator for freezing. This formula makes use of the thickening effect of glutinous rice flour, the natural pigment of red bean skin, the natural aroma of osmanthus, and the sugar added when making red bean paste. The taste and viscosity of popsicles can be adjusted by controlling the ratio of raw materials to water. Drop, so be patient and wait for it to freeze. Formula 2: Hawthorn sorbet; Ingredients: a bottle of canned hawthorn in syrup. Practice: the canned hawthorn is pitted, chopped, mixed with the original juice, slightly diluted with water, placed in the popsicle mold, frozen in the freezer for one night and then taken out. This extremely simple formula uses natural pectin in hawthorn as thickener, natural fruit acid in hawthorn as souring agent, natural anthocyanin as pigment and white sugar added in canned food as sweetener. With thickener, the freezing speed will be greatly improved.