Dessert has always been a very important part of my diet. In fact, it is so important that sometimes, I could possibly visit a restaurant for dinner because of the quality of the sweet promise.

A question that has always on my mind was the difference between Gelato and Ice Cream. What are the differences? Is Gelato from Italy and holds a more prestigious brand rather than the generic ice cream? Today as I was waiting for the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, I was greeted by a Gelato shop, so I decided to ask for the differences and to my surprise, there are significant differences between the two brands. Here are the major differences:

• Gelato is made with significantly more milk while ice creams have at least a minimum of 10 percent of cream leading to roughly 5-7 percent of fat.
• Gelato is churned at a significantly slower speed reducing the amount of air making it denser (20-30%)
• Ice cream is served generally frozen while Gelato is served slightly warmer than frozen.
• Generally speaking because of the reduced fat content in Gelato, there is coating in the mouth.

Oh yes, and Sorbetto, which is merely using milkfat that is less than 3%. Certainly that is new information for me. As a side note, their Gelato was pretty good. Visit them at the ferry terminal. (Vancouver side)