Sorbet

So what’s the dif­fer­ence between Ice milk, ice cream, gela­to, frozen cus­tard, frozen yogurt, sher­bet, sor­bet?

Ice cream refers to any frozen dairy prod­uct with at least 10% milk­fat, accord­ing to the USDA. In the US ice cream usu­al­ly con­tains cream, milk and sug­ar. Ice cream tends to be less dense than gela­to or frozen cus­tard, because its milk­fat is most­ly cream, which is thick enough to form bub­bles while the ice cream is churning.

Ice milk is ice cream with less than 10% milk­fat but the same amount of sweet­en­er. You used to see gov­ern­ment-man­dat­ed signs say­ing “We sell ice milk” in Dairy Queen or any oth­er place that served it.

In 1994 the USDA changed that rule, allow­ing ice milk to be called low-fat ice cream instead. But all intel­li­gent peo­ple know either “ice milk” or “low-fat ice cream” is a euphemism for “nasty run­ny white stuff that tastes like Liq­uid Paper.”

Gela­to is Ital­ian for “ice cream,” but it’s not the same as ice cream.  Gela­to has more milk than ice cream, mak­ing it denser and creamier.

Frozen cus­tard adds egg yolks to the cream and sug­ar. It’s denser than ice cream as well.

Frozen yogurt uses yogurt to pro­vide the milk­fat rather than cream or milk.

Sher­bet is a frozen dessert with milk­fat and fruit.

And final­ly, sor­bet is frozen fruit with no milk.