Although it seems well plausible that the type of the
fat phase would influence the ice cream characteristics,
only limited data actually demonstrated this effect.
Among the different methods of characterization used in
this work to discriminate among the different formulations,
some, e.g., size determination of fat droplets, were
relevant to distinguish between emulsifiers, but gave less
information regarding the influence of fat type. The
presence of PUMDGin ice cream formulations led to an
increased agglomeration of fat globules as compared to
SMDG. However, with this last emulsifier, the effect of
the fat nature poorly affected the droplet size. It seemed
that SMDGde veloped more interactions with fat,
regardless the composition, than PUMDG, leading to
less influence of the fat type on ice cream droplet size
characteristics. On the other hand, the rheological data
and melting time appeared to illustrate the influence of
the fat nature. In particular, a high linear correlation
was noticed between the storage modulus measured at
20 1C and the melting time (Fig. 6). However, since the
melting time was not simply correlated to the fat globule
diameters, other parameters such as globule interactions
and/or fat crystallization, may also influence the melting
behaviour of ice cream mixes. Oscillatory rheology
helped in the interpretation of the complex behaviour of
ice cream upon heating. Besides measuring the viscoelastic
parameters of ice cream, it allowed the different
components and their role in each temperature domain