Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavored with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food colouring is sometimes added in addition to stabilizers. The mixture is cooled below the freezing point of water and stirred to incorporate air spaces and prevent detectable ice crystals from forming. It can also be made by whisking a flavored cream base and liquid nitrogen together. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam that is solid at very low temperatures (below 2 °C or 35 °F). It becomes more malleable as its temperature increases.

Ice cream may be served in dishes, eaten with a spoon, or licked from edible wafer ice cream cones held by the hands as finger food. Ice cream may be served with other desserts—such as cake or pie—or used as an ingredient in cold dishes—like ice cream floats, sundaes, milkshakes, and ice cream cakes—or in baked items such as Baked Alaska.

Italian ice cream is gelato. Frozen custard is a type of rich ice cream. Soft serve is softer and is often served at amusement parks and fast-food restaurants in America. Ice creams made from cow's milk alternatives, such as goat's or sheep's milk, or milk substitutes (e.g., soy, cashew, coconut, almond milk, or tofu), are available for those who are lactose intolerant, allergic to dairy protein, or vegan. Banana "nice cream" is a 100% fruit-based vegan alternative. Frozen yogurt, or "froyo", is similar to ice cream but uses yogurt and can be lower in fat. Fruity sorbets or sherbets are not ice creams but are often available in ice cream shops.

The meaning of the name ice cream varies from one country to another. In some countries, such as the United States, ice cream applies only to a specific variety, and most governments regulate the commercial use of the various terms according to the relative quantities of the main ingredients, notably the amount of cream. Products that do not meet the criteria to be called ice cream are sometimes labelled "frozen dairy dessert" instead. In other countries, such as Italy and Argentina, one word is used for all variants. Ice cream is a colloidal emulsion made with water, ice, milk fat, milk protein, sugar and air. Water and fat have the highest proportions by weight creating an emulsion that has dispersed phase as fat globules. The emulsion is turned into foam by incorporating air cells which are frozen to form dispersed ice cells. The triacylglycerols in fat are nonpolar and will adhere to themselves by Van der Waals interactions. Water is polar, thus emulsifiers are needed for dispersion of fat. Also, ice cream has a colloidal phase of foam which helps in its light texture. Milk proteins such as casein and whey protein present in ice cream are amphiphilic, can adsorb water and form micelles which will contribute to its consistency. The proteins contribute to the emulsification, aeration and texture. Sucrose, which is a disaccharide, is usually used as a sweetening agent. Lactose, which is sugar present in milk, will cause freezing point depression. Thus, on freezing some water will remain unfrozen and will not give a hard texture. Too much lactose will result in a non ideal texture because of either excessive freezing point depression or lactose crystallization.

Before the development of modern refrigeration, ice cream was a luxury reserved for special occasions. Making it was quite laborious; ice was cut from lakes and ponds during the winter and stored in holes in the ground, or in wood-frame or brick ice houses, insulated by straw. Many farmers and plantation owners, including U.S. Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, cut and stored ice in the winter for use in the summer. Frederic Tudor of Boston turned ice harvesting and shipping into a big business, cutting ice in New England and shipping it around the world.

Ice cream was made by hand in a large bowl placed inside a tub filled with ice and salt. This is called the pot-freezer method. French confectioners refined the pot-freezer method, making ice cream in a sorbetière [fr] (a covered pail with a handle attached to the lid). In the pot-freezer method, the temperature of the ingredients is reduced by the mixture of crushed ice and salt. The salt water is cooled by the ice, and the action of the salt on the ice causes it to (partially) melt, absorbing latent heat and bringing the mixture below the freezing point of pure water. The immersed container can also make better thermal contact with the salty water and ice mixture than it could with ice alone.

The hand-cranked churn, which also uses ice and salt for cooling, replaced the pot-freezer method. The exact origin of the hand-cranked freezer is unknown, but the first U.S. patent for one was #3254 issued to Nancy Johnson on 9 September 1843. The hand-cranked churn produced smoother ice cream than the pot freezer and did it quicker. Many inventors patented improvements on Johnson's design.

In Europe and early America, ice cream was made and sold by small businesses, mostly confectioners and caterers. Jacob Fussell of Baltimore, Maryland was the first to manufacture ice cream on a large scale. Fussell bought fresh dairy products from farmers in York County, Pennsylvania, and sold them in Baltimore. An unstable demand for his dairy products often left him with a surplus of cream, which he made into ice cream. He built his first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania, in 1851. Two years later, he moved his factory to Baltimore. Later, he opened factories in several other cities and taught the business to others, who operated their own plants. Mass production reduced the cost of ice cream and added to its popularity.

The development of industrial refrigeration by German engineer Carl von Linde during the 1870s eliminated the need to cut and store natural ice, and, when the continuous-process freezer was perfected in 1926, commercial mass production of ice cream and the birth of the modern ice cream industry was underway.

In modern times, a common method for producing ice cream at home is to use an ice cream maker, an electrical device that churns the ice cream mixture while cooled inside a household freezer. Some more expensive models have an built-in freezing element. A newer method is to add liquid nitrogen to the mixture while stirring it using a spoon or spatula for a few seconds; a similar technique, advocated by Heston Blumenthal as ideal for home cooks, is to add dry ice to the mixture while stirring for a few minutes. Some ice cream recipes call for making a custard, folding in whipped cream, and immediately freezing the mixture. Another method is to use a pre-frozen solution of salt and water, which gradually melts as the ice cream freezes.

An unusual method of making ice cream was done during World War II by American fighter pilots based in the South Pacific. They attached pairs of 5-US-gallon (19 L) cans to their aircraft. The cans were fitted with a small propeller, this was spun by the slipstream and drove a stirrer, which agitated the mixture while the intense cold of high altitude froze it.B-17 crews in Europe did something similar on their bombing runs as did others.

Ice cream can be mass-produced and thus is widely available in developed parts of the world. Ice cream can be purchased in large cartons (vats and squrounds) from supermarkets and grocery stores, in smaller quantities from ice cream shops, convenience stores, and milk bars, and in individual servings from small carts or vans at public events. In 2015, the US produced nearly 900 million US gallons (3.4×109 L; 750,000,000 imp gal) of ice cream.

Today, jobs specialize in the selling of ice cream. The title of a person who works in this speciality is often called an 'ice cream man', however women also specialize in the selling of ice cream. People in this line of work often sell ice cream on beaches. On beaches, ice cream is either sold by a person who carries a box full of ice cream and is called over by people who want to purchase ice cream, or by a person who drives up to the top of the beach and rings a bell. In the second method, people go up to the top of the beach and purchase ice cream straight from the ice cream seller, who is often in an ice cream van. In Turkey and Australia, ice cream is sometimes sold to beach-goers from small powerboats equipped with chest freezers.

Some ice cream distributors sell ice cream products from travelling refrigerated vans or carts (commonly referred to in the US as "ice cream trucks"), sometimes equipped with speakers playing children's music or folk melodies (such as "Turkey in the Straw"). The driver of an ice cream van drives throughout neighbourhoods and stops every so often, usually every block. The seller on the ice cream van sells the ice cream through a large window; this window is also where the customer asks for ice cream and pays. Ice cream vans in the United Kingdom make a music box noise rather than actual music.

Next onto our swap:

Post THREE (3) (or more) pictures or gifs to each of your THREE (3) partner's profiles with the theme "ice cream". The pictures that you choose may be the SAME OR DIFFERENT between all of your partners. Please choose pictures that you think THEY will enjoy!

If you get 3 (or more) pictures from your partner on "ice cream" you have to rate them a 5. The heart on the rating is for if you like what they sent.

To leave a photo on someone's profile use this code ! [ ] ( Put image here ) With NO spaces & paste the picture's link between the curved parenthesis.

Practice on your own profile first to be sure it looks good because you can easily delete there.

Pick images that are size 300 wide or smaller to be sure they fit. I go to Google images to get my pictures.

Hover over images to see their size because there will be some larger sizes there too. If you really like something click on it and go to the words SEARCH BY IMAGE and click on that. THEN go to the word SMALL and see if there is one 300 size. There are other tricks in the group thread; AN EASY way to get a small PIC from a BIG one;-)

You can find moving pictures at http://giphy.com/

You can also find gifs at google, just type in topic gif 300 x 300.

Please write the TITLE OF THE SWAP ON YOUR PROFILE DECO MESSAGE too! This makes it easier for partners that are in a lot of these swaps to rate it.

Any problems, feel free to contact me.

I want to thank @anrtist for allowing me to borrow SOME of her wording.

Requirements:

1. A well filled out profile. I will check the night before partners get assigned.

2. You need to login at least two days prior to sign-in date.

3. Your dashboard must be up to date.