In 1674 Nicholas Lemery published a recipe for water ice in his book Recueil de Curiosités les plus rares et admirables and two years later Pierre described freezing a mixture of fruit, cream and sugar by using snow and saltpeter.
Beginning of the 18th century, Italian brand leaders the Neapolitans had learned to combine vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ices in the famous trinity.
Ice cream probably came to the United States with the early English settlers. In 1851, the first wholesale ice cream industry in the United States was established in Baltimore, Maryland.
Ice cream was made by hand until in the 1840s Nancy Johnson of Philadelphia invented the first ice cream making machine. She was only the 24th woman to be granted a US patent when she received one in 1843 for her invention of a hand-cranked ice cream freezer, a labor-saving device that led to expanded consumption of ice cream.
The invention simplified ice cream production and ensured a more uniform texture that had previously been possible.
In 1851 Jacob Fussell of Baltimore the owner of a dairy shop, at the end of the day pours leftover cream and milk into the artificial freezer, which he made into ice cream and shortly afterwards opens the first ice cream factory, in Seven Valleys. He was the first to manufacture ice cream on a large scale.
The development of condensed and dried milks and the introduction of the pasteurizer and homogenizer, improved freezers, and other preserving equipment accompanied the growth of this industry after 1900.
Until World War II, virtually all ice cream manufacturers created their product by a method known as ‘batch freezing’.
After the war, commercial refrigeration and more sophisticated ice cream makers came along, and batch freezers disappeared. The first ice cream filling and packaging machines were introduced by Mojonnier Brothers and Sealright firms around 1920, and in 1923 the Nizer Cabinet Company introduced the first automatic electric freezer.
In 1926, Clarence Vogt from Louisville invents the first continuous process freezer.
In the latter half of the 20th century, automated equipment accelerated the process of manufacturing ice cream, guaranteed a more uniform product and improved sanitation in the plant.
In 1927, Otello Cattabriga an ingenious Italian manufacturer from Bologna patented a mechanical system to make Italian style gelato. His system of attaching a motor to the blending system became highly successful and he soon left his shop in Via Mazzini to manufacture his “electric motor-ice-cream-makers” on an industrial scale.
With the continuous commercial freezers, the mix of cream, sugar and eggs was poured in and quickly whipped with fast moving beaters. These machines continuously spit out the ice cream.
Mechanization of ice cream manufacturing
