If you’ve had a power failure, or a container of ice cream has been left out of the freezer and has melted, you may be wondering: ‘Can I refreeze ice cream that is partially thawed?’
We all know reheating food left out for a while can pose a health hazard, but what about colder items?
How do you revive melted ice cream? It may not be safe to eat melted ice cream. But basically you would have to remake the ice cream by putting it in a particularly cold freezer and stirring it occasionally as it freezes. You cannot use a self defrosting freezer.
Can melted ice cream be frozen once it has melted?
First, let’s consider the question; ‘How long can you keep ice cream in the freezer?’
Most food experts would say that if it is a commercial ice cream stored in an appropriate container in the coldest part of the freezer, then about two to four months.
Meanwhile, a home-made or artisan ice that contains no preservatives would be OK for about a month.
Take it out of the freezer and its shelf-life becomes a great deal shorter.
But can ice cream freeze after melting? Well of course, but there are reasons why you might not want that to happen.
Ice cream is an emulsion that is a mixture of two liquids that don’t normally combine together.
Its composition includes tiny ice crystals that are surrounded by air cells and fat. If this frozen confection is placed in a temperature above the recommended -10°C to -12°C (14°F to 10°F) the ice crystals begin to melt and the structure of the ice cream is destabilised.
As anyone who has ever tried to eat an ice cream on a hot sunny day will know, the warmer the temperature the quicker the ice crystals disappear.
Because the walls of the cells break and lose moisture, fat floats above the water and that means it does not have the same structure as it had when it was first made. The ice crystals will be larger than they were before so the texture will have changed, and the taste will have altered too.
So, can you eat ice cream that has melted and refrozen? You can if you refreeze ice cream that has been slightly melted and has been kept cold. For example, if you’ve brought it home from the supermarket in a freezer bag and it has softened a little bit, but you might not wish to if it has been left out of the freezer for a few hours, as not only will it taste spoilt, but you may even be putting your health at risk if you do.
This is because when ice cream melts, bacteria such as listeria is given the right kind of conditions to grow and can cause people to become very ill with listeriosis.
Not everyone gets sick, but be aware that you need to err on the side of caution.
Ice cream is often given to the elderly, babies and young children and any kind of food poisoning would be highly detrimental to their health. So basically, if your ice cream has melted, then throw it away.
We are assuming here that restaurants and commercial food suppliers would not want to send out refrozen ice cream to their customers simply because it just won’t be as good as it was before, but the prospect of giving people food poisoning and the consequent damage that will do to your business means it just isn’t worth taking the risk.
How long does it take for bacteria to grow on melted ice cream?
Ice cream is a delicious confection and for it to stay that way care needs to be taken to keep it at the right temperature.
If your ice cream is left out for a short period of time, slight melting will not be a problem, especially if it has been somewhere cold but if it is left at room temperature for more than two hours then there is a risk to health.
This is because temperatures between 40°F (4°C) and 140°F (60°C) are known to encourage the growth of bacteria which will quickly multiply and result in the production of toxins which are not destroyed by freezing. This is particularly relevant if they contain raw eggs, as many artisan ice creams do.
Can melted ice cream be refrozen?
FAQ
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