The Syrupy Tip You Need For Making Ice Cream Like A Pro

Corn syrup might get a bad rep these days, but it can be extremely useful in the kitchen, especially when it comes to making your favorite desserts like these unfrosted cookies. The underrated syrup can practically do it all — but it especially shines when you put it in your ice cream recipe.

If your homemade ice cream constantly comes out icy, and you're looking for an upgrade to improve its texture, look no further than corn syrup. Thanks to the ways that corn syrup interacts with your other ice cream ingredients, you'll end up with a smoother dish of ice cream than you would without it. As you probably know, there's nothing worse than eating a spoonful of ice cream and discovering that it's full of tiny ice crystals. So with a little bit of corn syrup (and a touch of science too), get rid of all of those nasty crystals and make your ice cream taste as if it came straight from a professional kitchen.

How exactly does corn syrup transform homemade ice cream from a snow-adjacent disappointment to a luscious treat? It all comes down to a few chemical reactions, so if there's ever a good time to thank science for its role in your culinary endeavors, it's right now.

Corn syrup is a sugar made from corn starch, and its sugar is entirely glucose (as opposed to other types of sugar, like sucrose and lactose). Some types of sugar, like the sucrose in table sugar, crystallize, but glucose actually prevents crystallization. Homemade ice cream typically calls for regular table sugar, which is an important way to give it those sweet flavors, but without any ingredients to balance out the sucrose in the sugar, the ice cream will end up with little ice crystals forming. That's why corn starch's crystallization prevention qualities are so important. In the right proportions, the corn starch's glucose will smooth out the sugar in the ice cream but still keep your dessert as sweet as ever. Goodbye, pesky ice flakes — hello corn syrup.

Corn syrup is easily confused with high-fructose corn syrup, but the distinction between the two is important when you make ice cream. Although high-fructose corn syrup is indeed one form of corn syrup, it's not what you'll end up putting in your homemade ice cream.

The corn syrup you'll want to use for your homemade ice cream is quite different from high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup is refined, which actually converts those helpful glucose molecules that'll smooth out your ice cream to fructose. Instead, you'll want to use glucose-packed "regular" corn syrup, which comes in multiple varieties. Light corn syrup is aptly named for its color — it's nearly translucent and has a flavor reminiscent of vanilla. By contrast, dark corn syrup features molasses, which boldens its flavor profile. You can use either type of corn syrup to help make your ice cream, but you may want to consider which type of ice cream you're making and how strong you want its flavors to be when you choose which type of corn syrup to use. Just a little bit of corn syrup goes a long way, and when you use it in your ice cream, you'll feel like a culinary superstar as you down your smoothest ice cream yet.