Every day, companies expand their product lines of flavored water and ice creams to satisfy consumers’ demands. The range of available flavors is constantly growing, from organic and natural fruit flavors to more traditional flavors like strawberry, watermelon, and kiwi.
With so many new and exciting flavors available today, consumers are often perplexed about which one they want to purchase. Many are curious if ice cream-flavored water exists, which is understandable! We know that, of course, it does! But only with caveats. Read more to find out.
Contents
What is flavored water?
Flavored water contains either sugar or artificial sweeteners, as well as natural or artificial flavorings. Most ice creams also use some of these mixed with other ingredients.
The main idea of making flavored waters is purification, a method designed by ancient alchemists to extract the essence of a substance through evaporation and condensation. A distillation manual of the Tania Norris Collection mentions the recipes to make distilled floral and herbal waters from botanicals like violets, peonies, water lilies, and citrus.
The distillation is done by heating the flowers and herbs, letting them vaporize certain compounds, and leaving behind others, creating pigment concentration, flavonoids, and aromatics, which is the essence of the flowers.
According to Abigail Storms, the vice president of Global Strategic Marketing at Tate & Lyle, people have known flavored waters since about a decade ago, starting with increasing demand to drink more water or consume fewer carbonated soft drinks.
People are more aware of health coming from the food and drinks they consume. They prefer flavored water to soft drinks or other sugary beverages because flavored waters contain fewer calories and more nutritional values than those drinks.
What is flavored water made of?
Lots of flavored waters contain natural flavors derived either from animals or plants. As some of these are highly processed, it’s not compulsory to reveal their sources. Because of this, only taking a look at the food label might not be enough to make sure you pick a healthy beverage for your body.
One solution for you to be sure that you know the ingredients in the flavored water is by making it by yourself simply by adding sliced fruits and herbs to cold water. Then, let it sit for a while. The longer you keep it, the stronger the flavor will be. A plus, you also save money and reduce waste!
Unfortunately, if you want to make ice cream, there are more steps to it.
How the flavored water and ice cream have developed?
The Senior Brand Manager at Perrier, Christine Sumecki, explained that consumers’ preference for healthier yet still satisfying drinks raises the consumption of sparkling beverages, particularly driving industries to create various healthy products that feature bold fruit flavors and unique ingredients.
Quite the same thing happens with ice cream. People are demanding more flavors, as well as healthier ingredients, without lessening the delicious taste. This increases the variety of the flavors. Nowadays, you can even find special editions with flavors that come from vegetables and herbs.
Facts about ice cream flavored water
People identify ice cream by its soft and creamy texture, while flavored water is only added with flavors. Up till now, you might rarely find any ice cream flavored water. Although it will be unique and might have many admirers, combining the creamy and liquid to become an ice cream flavored water is still unimaginable for the industries to come up with it.
- When you freeze only water or even cream, it will result in a stiff block or frozen liquid. On the contrary, we need to make special techniques to create smaller ice crystals and incorporate air that will yield a soft texture.
- Mostly you will find the same flavors in flavored waters and ice creams. You only enjoy the same tastes in different kinds of materials.
- Chemists cannot imitate the creamy texture of ice cream by the watery surface of the flavored water, at least so far.
DIY Ice cream flavored water
There are alternatives to get you water flavor ice cream, or at least the one you would imagine it would taste.
Sorbet
Sorbet is a frozen dessert made from fruit juice, sugar, water, and usually dairy products. People often eat sorbet as an after-dinner treat or between courses.
Some of the most popular flavors are strawberry, mango, orange, pineapple, and raspberry. People often serve sorbet with toppings like cookie crumbs or brownie pieces. It has a smooth and creamy texture that isn’t too watery or overly sweet but tastes like the natural fruit it’s made from. This property should sounds familiar with flavored water.
Sorbet is not the same as an ice cream which does have fat. You can find sorbets in most grocery stores, but they are also easy to make at home. Sorbet is made of water, fruit, sugar, and lemon juice or wine.
Cucumber Ice Cream
It turns out the cucumber juice blended into a rich, eggless ice cream base is unexpectedly sweet, calm, creamy, and refreshing. The taste of cucumber juice is subtle and adds to the overall flavor profile.
The recipe calls for evaporated milk, heavy cream, cucumber juice, and salt. You’ll need Persian cucumbers to make this recipe work. Be sure not to be overly cautious with the salt–salt the ice cream heavily!
Put the mixture in the fridge for at least 2 hours to allow it time to meld. Please place it in a bowl and follow the instructions provided by the ice cream manufacturer to create a soft-serve consistency.
Cover and freeze the ice cream for a few hours, then serve.
Conclusion
The cream needed for consistency will change the flavor if you still insist on converting water to ice cream. The snow cone that’s unflavored is as close as you can get to water flavor ice cream. The texture of ice cream is due to the churned freezing of cream.
If you require consistency and taste as your only benchmarks, a food chemist can provide you with them. You’ll need some binding agents to give it that creamy texture, but for taste, you need stuff for which the human body doesn’t have receptors.
The bottom line is you can’t make a creamy drink only with water. The cream is fat, and it will taste like what you’ve put in your glass. In this case, we recommend something like unflavored gelatin for texture mix. Other alternatives to get you close are cucumber ice cream and sorbet.
