We are in the middle of summer and who says summer, says ice cream and says hands full of sugar or beautiful stains on our clothes most of the time. Frankly, we dare anyone to eat 3 scoops of cone ice cream below 30°C and come out unscathed. While we were lounging on a deckchair or around the pool, scientists looked into the problem in order to simplify our lives. The first on the scene were Scottish academics who in 2015 developed a protein of natural origin which fixes the different elements of an ice cream together for longer, thus slowing down the melting (and 2nd good point:it is less calories!). They hope to be able to put these ice creams on the market between 2018 and 2020. But the Japanese have gone even further by developing Kanazawa ice cream, an ice cream that does not melt, even in direct sunlight. The good news:it's already available. The bad news:it is currently only available in Japan.
It was in Kanazawa, Japan, in a biotherapy research center, that scientists discovered completely by chance a molecule capable of freezing cream, and thus allowing an ice cream to keep its shape without ever melting, even under a sultriness. Affected by the 2011 tsunami, farmers in the region resumed growing strawberries, but their shape did not allow them to sell them on the market. The research center then commissioned a pastry chef to create new sweets using these strawberries. He therefore tried to use strawberry polyphenols, but the chef complained about the result, because his attempts were “failed”:the molecule had solidified his desserts. This is how the researchers came up with the idea of using polyphenols and therefore strawberries to freeze the ice cream. And it works ! Journalists from Quartz magazine tested these Japanese ice creams and found that even after 5 minutes in direct sunlight, nothing has melted and it is still fresh, even to the taste. Kanazawa ice cream is currently only available in select stores in Osaka and Tokyo.
The solution to one of our summer problems was there before our eyes all this time, in our strawberry punnets. We will finally be able to eat an ice cream without having to hurry so that it does not melt too quickly. When is it in France?
