Ice cream is a frozen dessert liked by people of all age group. It is mainly produced from dairy products like milk/milk powder with the addition of sweeteners mainly sucrose, flavoured with fruits, chocolate or any other ingredients. The presence of dairy products and flavouring ingredients makes ice cream nutrient-rich food. It is also an excellent source of fats, proteins and carbohydrates which is essential for the production of energy. Ice cream contains three or four times more fat, carbohydrate and 12-16 % more protein than milk. The presence of food products like fruits, nuts, eggs and chocolates enhances the nutritive value. Ice cream is an excellent source of energy, as 50% of its total solids content is sugars like lactose, sucrose, and corn syrup solids. These constituents are almost completely assimilated and make ice cream an especially desirable food for growing children. It also contains the vitamins such as Vitamin B12, B6, D, C and E.

Though desserts like ice creams are being relished by all people irrespective of age, lifestyle diseases like diabetes which restrict the use of sugar intake stop many from taking ice creams. Thus replacing the sugar in ice cream preparation with healthy sweeteners can help people to have their favourite ice creams without any worry about the sucrose content. ICAR Sugarcane breeding institute developed a technology to prepare ice cream from sugarcane syrup/ powder jaggery and sugarcane juice replacing the sugar in the ice cream with a healthier form of sugar. Other than this majority of the unhealthy chemicals used during the ice cream preparation are for adding artificial flavour to improve its acceptability. So replacing the sugar with sugarcane syrup /powder jaggery and or sugarcane juice can enrich the ice creams with the natural flavour of sugarcane and the nutritional benefits of the sugarcane as such.

Two methods of ice cream preparation are developed. In these preparation methods, the majority of white sugar content is replaced with a healthier form of sweeteners like sugarcane juice and syrup /powder jaggery.

     ♣ In this method of ice cream preparation commercially available whipping cream (can be with or without sugar), evaporated milk sweetened with organically prepared powder Jaggery/ Sugarcane syrup and flavouring agents (chocolate or butterscotch) are used. The milk is condensed by boiling to reduce the volume to one-third and further sweetened with the powdered jaggery/ sugarcane syrup. The ice cream is garnished with caramel prepared from Sugarcane syrup. The sucrose content in the ice cream was estimated to be 14.1-17.3%

      ♣ In the second method of ice cream preparation concentrated fresh juice mixed with corn flour is used. The juice is concentrated by boiling so as to increase the brix %. During the preparation sugarcane syrup/ powder jaggery is also added to the mixture to increase the sweetness. In this process, juice is extracted from the fully matured sugarcane with a brix >20%. In this preparation, extra flavour is not added so as to have the real flavour of sugarcane juice. The sucrose content in the ice cream was estimated to be 21.3-22.8%. The ice cream contains 166 Kcal energy, total fat 8.99g calcium 192.8mg, iron 5.5mg, crude fiber 0.43g and Zinc 1.0mg per 100g of the ice cream.