There Is No Single Right Balance
A "balanced" ice cream is not one fixed set of numbers. A light, clean vanilla and a dense, rich one can both be perfectly balanced; they are just different ice creams. So before you balance, decide what you want to make. Then choose the chart that fits that style, protect the ingredients that define the flavor, and let Smart Balance do the rest.
This article covers those decisions and how to set up balancing for three typical cases: vanilla and other small-dose flavors, chocolate, and fruit. How Smart Balance itself works (the Balance dialog, the class chips, locking and the result summary) is explained in Balancing.
The Decisions That Define a Style
Five choices shape most of the character of a dairy ice cream. Lower values give a lighter, cleaner, more refreshing ice cream; higher values a denser, richer one.
| Decision | Light and clean | Dense and rich | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egg yolks (per kg of mix) | 0–2 | 4–6 | 1–2 yolks act only as an emulsifier and are not tasted. From about 4 the ice cream becomes a custard. |
| Total fat | 10–12% | 15–18% | Fat carries richness, but also mutes delicate flavors. |
| Total solids | 38–40% | 43–46% | More solids means more body and less ice. |
| Sweetness (POD) | 165–175 | 175–185 | Adjust to taste and to the flavor: bitter or sour flavors need more. |
| Serving temperature | colder | warmer | Set by the freezer or cabinet you serve from, not by richness alone. |
Gelato is the clearest example of a different style: less fat, fewer solids, little air, and served warmer, so the flavor comes through more strongly. That is why it has its own charts.
Choose the Chart for Your Style
The default charts cover the common styles. Start with the one closest to what you are making:
| You are making | Ice cream chart | Gelato chart |
|---|---|---|
| Dairy base with small-dose flavors: vanilla, spices, herbs, infusions, or a base for add-ins | Ice Cream Base | Gelato Base |
| Chocolate, cocoa or nut pastes | Ice Cream Chocolate and Nuts | Gelato Chocolate and Nuts |
| Fruit, or other ingredients with a lot of water | Ice Cream Fruit | Gelato Fruit |
| Recipes with liqueur or spirits | Ice Cream Alcohol | Gelato Alcohol |
There are also default charts for Sorbet, Sherbet, Soft Serve, spin machines (PacoJet NinjaCreami) and vegan recipes (Vegan Base, Vegan Ice Cream, Vegan Gelato, Vegan Chocolate and Nuts).
The default charts are a starting point. If you want your own targets, for example a fixed total fat of 15%, click a bar to change it for the current recipe (Quick Edit), or copy the chart and adjust the copy. See Charts.
Vanilla and Other Small-Dose Flavors
Vanilla, spices, coffee extract and infused flavors are the easiest to balance: they are used in small amounts and add almost no fat, solids or water. The base does all the work.
Chart: Ice Cream Base (or Gelato Base).
Smart Balance setup:
- Vanilla or other flavoring: Flav (or lock it).
- Egg yolks: lock them, so the number of yolks you chose stays fixed.
- Stabilizer: Stab. Emulsifier, if you use one: Emul.
- Milk, cream, milk powder and sugars: Free, so the balancer can move them.
If you leave out the eggs, add another emulsifier such as lecithin or mono- and diglycerides; the Ice Cream Base chart has an emulsifier target.
Example targets for a medium-rich vanilla with four egg yolks per kg, set in a personal copy of the chart:
| Property | Target |
|---|---|
| Total fat | 15% |
| Total solids | 42% |
| MSNF/Water | about 15% |
| POD | 175 |
| Serving temp | −15 °C (5 °F) |
Tip: MSNF/Water. Milk solids not fat (MSNF) relative to the water is a good way to control body in a milk-and-cream base: around 15% works well. It is not on the default chart, but you can add it to your own copy. For a base without dairy, use TSNF/Water (total solids not fat relative to water) instead.
Chocolate
A deep chocolate flavor needs a lot of chocolate, and chocolate brings fat, sugar and solids with it. Cocoa powder adds even more solids. That makes chocolate the hardest style to balance: there is simply less room left for the dairy.
Chart: Ice Cream Chocolate and Nuts (or Gelato Chocolate and Nuts). Compared with Ice Cream Base, it allows less milk fat, more total solids and a little more sweetness to balance the bitterness, and it has no milk solids target, because the chocolate already brings plenty of solids.
Smart Balance setup:
- Chocolate and cocoa powder: Flav, or lock them if you want exactly that amount.
- Egg yolks: use one or two, or none, and lock them. Lecithin on Emul is a good alternative.
- Salt: a pinch, on Flav. It reduces the bitterness of cocoa and also softens the ice cream a little.
- Stabilizer: Stab.
- Milk powder: use less or remove it; the chocolate replaces it as a source of solids.
- Sugars: give the balancer several, such as sucrose, dextrose and a little fructose. Fructose adds sweetness with few solids, which helps when the solids are already high.
Expect a compromise. Plain milk is the leanest base there is: for a given sweetness and serving temperature, nothing gives fewer solids and less fat. Every gram of fat from the chocolate adds solids too, so with a lot of chocolate the total solids often end up slightly high. Lowering them would mean less fat, which means less chocolate. A result that is a little above the range is usually fine.
Chocolate and nuts also make ice cream feel harder than their PAC suggests. The calculator takes this into account in the serving temperature, so balance for the serving temperature as usual. See Understanding Scoopability and Serving Temperatures.
Fruit
Fruits and berries bring mostly water, plus fruit sugars and acid. Balancing a fruit ice cream is mainly about dealing with that extra water, which makes it easier than chocolate.
Chart: Ice Cream Fruit (or Gelato Fruit). Compared with Ice Cream Base it allows lower fat and solids, more water, and has no milk solids target.
First, decide how to handle the water:
- Cook or roast the fruit to drive off water. This concentrates it, but can dull the fresh flavor.
- Use the fruit raw and balance for the water. This keeps the fresh taste. If you add the raw purée after heating the base, mark it with the E button so it isn't counted in the evaporation. See Recipe Weights, Scaling & Evaporation.
Smart Balance setup:
- Fruit (for example 300 g strawberries per kg): Flav, or lock it.
- Egg yolks: one or two, as emulsifier only, locked.
- Stabilizer: Stab.
- Inulin, if you use it: Fib. Inulin is a fiber that adds solids and body without fat, which helps when you lower the fat.
Keep the fat on the low side, around 12–13%. Fat mutes fresh fruit flavors.
Brighten the flavor. A little malic acid (the acid in apples) or citric acid, or a squeeze of lemon juice, makes fruit taste fresher, especially after cooking. Add it to taste.
Fruit sugars matter. Most fruits contain glucose and fructose, which soften more than sucrose. If your fruit ingredient has no sugar composition recorded, the calculator counts its sugar as sucrose and the ice cream may come out softer than predicted. See How PAC and POD Are Calculated.
When Not Every Target Turns Green
Some combinations are impossible: you cannot have high fat and low solids, because fat is a solid, and you cannot have high sweetness with very little sugar. When targets conflict, Smart Balance returns the closest result it can find and gives advice on what is missing.
- Decide which targets matter most for this style and mark them as High Priority in the chart.
- Give the balancer enough ingredients to work with: at least two dairy sources and two or three sugars.
- A value just outside the range is often a better ice cream than a forced result. Taste it.
For balance advice, priorities and troubleshooting, see Balancing.