Our Ice Cream Manufacturing process.

At the Birthday Cake Shop, we take our ice cream manufacturing very seriously and leave no stone unturned to make the best quality, most flavoursome ice cream for our cakes.

Here’s how we go about it:

Blending the mixture

• The milk arrives to us in refrigerated tanker trucks from local dairy farms. The milk is then pumped into our storage vats that are kept at 36°F (2°C).  Premeasured amounts of eggs, sugar, and additives are blended with the milk for six to eight minutes.

Pasteurising to kill bacteria

•  The blended mixture is piped to the pastuerisation machine, which is composed
  of a series of thin stainless steel plates. Hot water, approximately 85°C, flows on one side of the plates. The cold milk mixture is piped through on the other side. The water warms the mixture to a temperature of 82°C, effectively killing any existing bacteria.

Homogenizing to produce a uniform texture

•  By the application of intensive air pressure, the hot mixture is forced through a small opening into the homogenizer. This breaks down the fat particles and prevents them from separating from the rest of the mixture. In the homogenizer, which is essentially a high-pressure piston pump, the mixture is further blended as it is drawn into the pump cylinder on the down stroke and then forced back out on the upstroke.

Cooling and resting to blend flavors

•  The mixture is piped back to the pasteuriser where cold water, approximately 1°C, flows on one side of the plates as the mixture passes on the opposite side. In this manner, the mixture is cooled to 2°. Then the mixture is then rested for 24 hours before the ice cream is produced.

Flavoring the ice cream

• The ice cream is pumped to stainless steel vats. Flavorings are piped into the vats and blended thoroughly.

Freezing to soft-serve consistency

•  Now the mixture must be frozen. It is pumped into continuous freezers that
  can freeze up to 500 litres per hour. The temperature inside the freezers is kept at -40°C. While the ice cream is in the freezer, air is injected into it. When the mixture leaves the freezer, it has the consistency of soft-serve ice cream.

Adding fruit and sweetened chunks

• If chunks of food such as strawberry or cookie pieces are to be added to the ice cream, the frozen mixture is pumped to a fruit feeder. The chunks are loaded into a hopper at the top of the feeder. Another, smaller hopper, fitted with a starwheel, is located on the front of the feeder. An auger on the bottom of the machine turns the hoppers so that the chunks drop onto the starwheel in pre-measured amounts. As the mixture passes through the feeder, the starwheel pushes the food chunks into the ice cream. The mixture then moves to a blender where the chunks are evenly distributed.

Hardening

• Before storage and shipping, the ice cream must be hardened to a temperature of -23°C.