Awards Earned: 1st Place, 7th Physical Science, PCA Science Fair

Which brand of vanilla ice cream melts slowest?

Ice cream that contains ingredients such as carrageenan, guar gum, locust bean gum, and cellulose gum will not melt as quickly because these ingredients are used by food manufacturers to inhibit melting.

I will label three pieces of masking tape with the names of each ice cream brand and place them on the kitchen table. Then, I will put one cereal bowl on the table just beneath each piece of tape. then, I will use two bread ties to fasten the Hibachi grill covers together and place them over the top of the cereal bowls. On the left side of the table I will keep my measuring device: the stopwatch, ruler and straw. I will take notes on a clipboard, including the temperature of the room. Once I have all my materials in place, I will start the stop watch and an assistant will remove the marked cups containing the ice cream from the freezer and place them near the appropriate bowl. After five minutes as measured by the stopwatch, myself and two assistants will quickly remove the ice cream and place it on the hibachi grills.

We will conclude the experiment at an hour and ten minutes by removing the grills with the remaining ice cream and placing them on the table for final observations. Then, we will sample the ice cream that remains on the grills, note its taste and texture and then measure the amount in the bowls. In addition to an "eyeball test" where we will attempt to gauge the amount of ice cream by sight, we will also measure the ice cream by putting a ruler in the melt, removing the ice cream from the bowl, filling it with approximately the same amount of water and then pouring the water into a graduated cylinder.

I tested three brands of ice cream under the same conditions to determine which brand would melt the slowest. Two of these, Haagen-Daaz and Turkey Hill list cream as their most prominent ingredient, but do not have additives that are designed to inhibit melting. The third, Giant brand, does not contain as much cream, but also has guar gum, locust bean gum, cellulose gum and carrageenan, which are all designed to inhibit melting.

Interestingly, Haagen-Daaz melted the slowest.  Moreover, I observed that Haagen-Daaz and Giant were similar in appearance as they melted. Each has a glossy, wet appearance on top and what I will call "stalactite effect" on the bottom. Rather than melting in watery droplets, melt from Haagen-Daaz and Giant brands formed what appeared to be stalactites as they dripped slowly into the bowl. Haagen-Daaz and Giant also tasted much creamier and yummier at the end of the experiment. 

The results show that guar gum, locust bean gum and carrageenan are effective at reducing or slowing ice cream melt.

Questions for further investigation are:
What effect do the egg yolks in Haagen-Daaz have on melting time?
Does ice cream with non-fat milk melt faster than ice cream with skim milk?

And God blessed them, and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth (Genesis 1:28).

We should use animals and plants wisely by not wasting anything because God tells us to be good stewards. The ingredients used in ice cream were all made by God directly and indirectly.

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