Vegan ice cream miracle

In this project, an optimised vegan vanilla mix was developed with an enhanced flavouring component, and coconut fat was used instead of rapeseed oil. A low-temperature extruder was employed to produce the ice cream. The consumer tests are rated as positive and, indeed, encouraging for further development steps.

Formulation development: An optimised vegan vanilla mix was produced. The dosage of the added flavour extract was increased slightly. In addition, the liquid fat content in the mix was reduced by completely replacing rapeseed oil with coconut oil in equal proportions. Coconut oil is more solid than rapeseed oil at the same temperature.

The process used to produce the vegan ice cream for the sensory test consisted of a conventional ice cream freezer and a twin-screw low-temperature extruder connected in series. The outlet temperature of the ice cream was between -11 and -13 degrees, which is about 4-5 degrees lower than conventionally.

The consumer test in the boutique in Bern at the beginning of July 2023 took place with 64 test persons. The vast majority of the test persons were tourists and between 18-50 years old. The acceptance of the standard Cuckoo Vanilla was 7.1 and the Cuckoo Vegan LTF variant scored 6.0 (9-point scale). This score can be considered relatively good for a processed plant-based product. However, the creaminess of the vegan variant was only suitable for just under 55% of the test subjects. Many (about 30%) found that the product was not creamy enough. Similar scores were obtained for sweetness and taste. Details can be found in the corresponding report. Apparently, the freezer from which the test products (both) were served was not temperature-constant, with a tendency towards too high a temperature (around 0°C). This means that the statements on the attributes have to be relativised and a repetition of the test is recommended after a few basic recipe adjustments, which aim at a better overrun. Overall, the results are considered positive and very encouraging.

Another trial was conducted with a standard mix and also in the constellation with a conventional ice cream freezer and a twin-screw low-temperature extruder connected in series. In this case, a new type of die was connected to the outlet of the low-temperature extruder. This enabled the production of a three-dimensional product. In this process, two high-pressure piston pumps were used to add a sweetened strawberry jelly in such a way that the strawberry jelly was applied to the ice cream strand on two sides. Strawberry mass was added on the upper and lower sides.