GELATO QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS MANUFACTURED FROM NATURAL INGREDIENTS

Ice cream is a highly complex food matrix that generally comprises a mixture of ingredients: air, water, milk fat, milk solids-not-fat, sweetener, stabilizer, emulsifier and flavoring agents. To improve the quality of ice cream, it is required to obtain the optimal formulation and processing parameters. To obtain a product with well-determined technological, organoleptic and physico-chemical properties is important to choose a right stabilizer. This paper presents quality indices of gelato manufactured from natural ingredients and the basic stabilizer, gelatin, is replaced in proportions of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% with spirulina. The use of spirulina contributes to the improvement of the nutritional and biological value of the new product. With the increase of the spirulina concentrationin the product, the characteristics for the organoleptic indices, especially the natural green color are improved. The chemical composition of ice cream is improved, by increasing the iron content from 2.68 to 3.63. The addition of mineral salts with the increase of the spirulina content in gelato leads to the increase of the cryoscopic point of the finished product. The degree of beating, overrun, penetration's value increases and the viscosity values decreases.