LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
Take A Look At All Of Our Food Glossaries

KEFIR (FROZEN)

Made from the drink kefir, frozen kefir is related to frozen yogurt. It looks and tastes like yogurt, but has a different complement of microorganisms. The result: A food even more healthful than probiotic yogurt. It’s a boon to the lactose intolerant as well: Lifeway Frozen Kefir, a leading brand, is 99% lactose free. Read our full review of this frozen delight.

Frozen kefir is similar to frozen yogurt, but is 99% lactose free with more probiotics. Photo by River Soma | THE NIBBLE .

Knickerbocker Glory is a sundae from the 1920s-era U.K. It’s a parfait designed to have red and white stripes. Photo Pinterest.

KULFI
A dense Indian-style ice cream made with water buffalo’s milk and flavorings like cardamom, chikoo (the Mexican fruit known as sapote), coconut, malai (almond), mango, pistachio and saffron. Kulfi sold in the U.S. is generally made with cow’s milk. Unlike Western ice creams that are whipped with air, kulfi contains no air (overrun)—it is solid dense frozen milk. As such, it is not not ice cream, but a different category of frozen, dairy-based dessert. Kulfi is also never made with eggs, like French ice cream. It is prepared by simply boiling milk until it is reduced to half; then sugar and a teaspoon of corn syrup is added and the mixture is boiled for 10 more minutes. Water is mixed in until it thickens into a paste and is boiled a while longer. Finally, flavorings, dried fruits or cardamom are added. The mixture is cooled, put into molds and frozen. Kulfi can be presented very elegantly or casually, as in the kulfi ice cream bar at the right. Kulfi is believed to have originated in Persia, and was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by Mogul royals in the 1500s.

MALTED MILK
A malted milk—“malt” for short—is a milkshake to which malt powder has been added. Malt powder is a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour and whole milk, which is evaporated into a powder. Originally a health food for infants and invalids, it found a new market when Americans began drinking Horlick’s malted milk for the great taste. It became a standard offering at soda fountains, and found permanent popularity when mixed with ice cream in a malted milkshake, or “malt.” It’s also used to make chocolate-covered malted milk balls.

MOCHI ICE CREAM
Mochi ice cream is a Japanese confection: a shell of from mochi (pounded sticky rice) filled with ice cream and dusted with cornstarch. Originally, the small, soft, round balls of dough were a pastry filled with sweetened red bean (adzuki), and are still made with different fillings. As a frozen dessert there are many flavors, including chocolate, green tea (matcha), red bean, strawberry, and vanilla. Here’s the history of mochi.

MONAKA ICE CREAM SANDWICH
For years, monaka has been a popular Japanese dessert (wagashi): crisp wafer cookies sandwiched around red been (azuki) paste, chestnut paste, sesame, even rice cake (mochi) and jam. The shells can be any shape: not just square, rectangular or round, but in the shape of fish, flowers, etc.  In Japan, monaka is a is served with tea, like tea cakes in the West. There are very famous monaka specialty stores in Japan. More recently, monaka ice cream sandwiches have become the range, filled with all flavors of ice cream. As in the photo, there can be an inner layer of jam, bean paste, chocolate, or whatever appeals to the pastry chef. The good news: monaka ice cream sandwiches have begun to make their way to the U.S.

NOVELTY
A single-serving frozen treats such as an ice cream bar, Popsicle or ice cream sandwiches.

OVERRUN
The amount of air churned into an ice cream or gelato during freezing. Super-premium ice creams have less than 50% overrun.

PARFAIT
Parfait, the French word for perfect, is the original French sundae. It was/is made with a custard-base ice cream flavored with fruit purée and whipped with a lot of air to a delicate texture. The ice cream was not scooped but pre-frozen in individual serving containers—typically the long, tapered parfait glasses, narrower versions of sundae dishes. In America, a “parfait” became a particular type of sundae, different from the French parfait.

American Parfait Vs. Sundae

• An American parfait shows its ingredients in layers: ice cream, syrup, fruit. It is traditionally served in a tall, narrow, short-stemmed glass, and topped with whipped cream.
• A traditional sundae dish is a wider, tulip shape with a scalloped rim. First ice cream is scooped into the dish, and it is topped with syrups, fruits, wet walnuts and crowned with whipped cream a maraschino cherry (today a fresh strawberry is often substituted). Crushed nuts and sprinkles can also be added.
  

PROFITEROLES
Profiteroles are pâte à choux, or cream puff pastry, filled with ice cream and generally topped with chocolate sauce. The difference between a cream puff and a profiterole is that cream puffs are filled with custard or whipped cream, and profiteroles are filled with ice cream. Fresh fruit or powdered sugar are alternative toppings, and the puffs can be caramel-glazed, as in croque-em-bouche. Learn how to make pâte à choux.

QUIESCENTLY-FROZEN or
STILL-FROZEN
The process of freezing a dessert mixture without churning.