Gelato Vs. Ice Cream: What's The Difference?

If you've ever walked past a gelato place (or a gelateria, if you're feeling fancy) with a 5-year-old, you may have explained to them that gelato is "Italian ice cream." That may have been enough to satisfy the child's curiosity, but it's actually not an entirely accurate description. Although ice cream and gelato are both frozen desserts usually made from dairy, there are subtle differences between the two. These differences may or may not matter to you on a hot summer's day when you need refreshment, but they are worth noting all the same.

Ice cream is made with heavy cream and milk and is more rich in fat than gelato, consisting of anywhere between 10% and 25% fat versus up to 9% for gelato. It also sometimes, but not always, includes eggs. Despite the fat and the heavy cream, however, ice cream is the lighter and fluffier option between the two, thanks to an intense churning process that incorporates more air into the dessert. Not that you need an industrial mixer to make delicious no-churn ice cream at home, of course.

Although the Vegan Police in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" famously informed Todd Ingram that gelato consists of "milk and eggs, b*tch" (via YouTube), most gelato you'll find isn't made with eggs. And unlike ice cream, which uses more cream than milk, gelato uses more milk than cream. The real difference, though, comes from the churning: Gelato is churned much more slowly than ice cream, resulting in a denser, richer dessert. Because it contains less fat than ice cream, this arguably results in a more intensely flavorful experience, too, as any added flavors are undiluted by the presence of the fat solids. Gelaterias could still stand to give us bigger spoons, though.

This may seem like splitting hairs to some. If you're out for a walk and you come across a place serving delicious and colorful creamy desserts beckoning at you from their tubs behind the glass, it may not matter to you whether it's ice cream or gelato. But it's nice to know exactly what makes each dessert unique, whether you're eating gelato, ice cream, custard, sherbet, or frozen yogurt.