[Sca-cooks] OOP: Ice cream question

[johnna holloway]

There has been quite a bit in the US news of late concerning the fact 
that Pepsi managed to finally come up with a frozen Diet pepsi version 
that can come out of the machines at 7-11 and still taste good.

  "Until now, 7-Eleven Inc., which owns the Slurpee brand, and The ICEE 
Co., which has been making frozen, carbonated drinks since 1961, have 
had little luck developing a zero-calorie, sugar-free version of their 
slushy sodas. Once they were semi-frozen, sugar substitutes, such as 
Nutrasweet, didn't have the consistency to "slush" through the straw 
like the real thing."

"Since cola, after all, is the top-selling soft-drink flavor, 7-Eleven 
challenged PepsiCo and Coca-Cola to develop a recipe. Now it has paid 
off as Diet Pepsi Slurpees debut at 7-Eleven stores nationwide in recent 
weeks."
  Still they sound jubilant back at Pepsi-Cola North America where 
spokesman Dave DeCecco says "We finally cracked the code . . . 
.Consumers have been asking for a diet-cola Slurpee for years - we 
wanted to be the ones to give it to them first."

It was quite a quest. "There's a little bit of rocket science to it," 
said John Ryckevic, the Slurpee and Big Gulp honcho at 7-Eleven 
headquarters in Dallas. Pepsi finally settled on a formula of three 
sweeteners - sucralose, erythritol and tagatose that is said to do the 
job without sacrificing taste.

The company says Diet Pepsi Slurpee has fared well in early customer 
surveys with 88 percent of those who have tried it saying they would buy 
it again.

At first glance, said Christine Palumbo, a registered dietitian and 
nutrition in Naperville, Ill., Diet Pepsi Slurpee doesn't raise any red 
flags. Sucralose is similar to a sugar-substitute called Splenda that is 
available in grocery stores. Erythritol is commonly present in 
sugar-free candy and tagatose is a non-nutritive sweetener that was most 
likely used sparingly, she said. " Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

My guess is that something like this is happening to the ice cream mix 
when it is made with splenda.

There is a splenda dessert book. You might check that out and see what 
it says.

Hope this helps.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Robert Downie wrote:
>> I tried making a low cal version once too, with similar results.  I saw an episode of Good Eats
> where Alton Brown maintained that a specific ratio of sugar is required to achieve the proper
> texture.  Here is an exerpt from the transcript of "Churn Baby Churn" found at
> http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/GEFP/index.htm :
> Faerisa