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If you’ve attended one of our catered high-end weddings, corporate events, or social occasions, you may have had this experience: dinner is winding down; the music is cranking up, and you find yourself with a serving of ice cream in your hands. But there’s something different about this ice cream. It’s smooth, silky, and intensely flavorful, more intense than you’ve ever tasted in ice cream before. That’s because what you’re eating isn’t ice cream at all. It’s Italian gelato.
And that gelato has a story.
Photo credits: Keith Westerburg
The Road to Gelato
The story of the gelato that Culinary Crafts makes is older than the company itself.
Back in 1981, Ron Crafts (co-founder of Culinary Crafts) had just left his job running the high rollers’ kitchen at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. A young man looking for a new adventure, he loaded a backpack and bought a one-way ticket to Italy.
Thus began a culinary journey that would change Ron’s life and, eventually, the culinary landscape of Utah, forever.
Ron was on a mission to educate himself about European food, so everywhere he went, he sought out the best, most unique, most iconic foods that the area had to offer. Starting in Sicily, he made his way northward, sleeping in hostels and spending every spare dime to sample the local cuisine. In Palermo he fell in love with zabaione. In Calabria he stumbled onto Calabrian chilis (a key ingredient we use in our Caesar salads). In Puglia he found a bakery where he learned to bake bread the way they’d made it since the 11th century.
But when he arrived in Florence, he hit what they call in Vegas the jackpot. On a quiet little street in the Santa Croce neighborhood, just a few steps from the Piazza San Simone, he stumbled onto a tiny shop that had been selling Italy’s best gelato since 1932. When Ron stepped into Vivoli Piero il Gelato, he was not prepared for what he would taste there. Although he had never been a huge fan of American ice cream, he was blown away by the fresh, clean, concentrated flavors of Vivoli. To this day, his face still cracks into a grin when he describes the mixed-berry sorbetta he tried on his first day in Florence. For four weeks, he kept him coming back to that shop several times a day to taste the gelato. Mango. Banana. Crema Inglese. Stracciatella. Gianduia. He tried every flavor they offered, and then he tried them again. They were all fantastic, but his absolute favorite was, not surprisingly, zabaione.
Photo credit: Angela Howard
What is Zabaione?
Zabaione (also spelled sabayon or zabaglione) is both a flavor and a dessert. The dessert is a classic Italian custard made by gently whisking egg yolks, sugar, and sweet wine—traditionally Marsala—over heat until the mixture become light and rich. It tastes creamy, sweet, eggy, and subtly boozy. You might say it’s Italy’s answer to eggnog.
Other desserts can also have that same zabaione flavor. You’ll find zabaione gelato, mousse, semifreddo, parfait, zuppa Inglese, American ice cream, and more.
Credits: Logan Walker and Pepper Nix; Angela Howard
Bringing Gelato Home to Utah.
It took a full month of Ron returning to that shop every day, asking questions and eating a lot of gelato, but finally the good folks at Vivoli Piero il Gelato agreed to teach him their secrets.
They took him to their backrooms and showed him exactly how they made their batches of zero-overrun product. Right away, Ron knew he had to bring this knowledge and these amazing flavors back with him to Utah. He bought an authentic Italian mantecatore (the same freezer/churner that Vivoli used) and had it shipped home.
Four years later, Ron and Mary Crafts opened a premium gelato shop in Provo, Utah.
Ronaldo’s Gelateria
The Ronaldo’s gelateria was located off University Boulevard at the bottom of the Orem/Provo hill. It featured many of the same incredible gelato flavors that Ron had discovered in Florence, as well as deli sandwiches, Italian sodas, and espresso coffees. While those offerings can be found all over Utah County today, they were groundbreaking back in 1985, and they were far ahead of their time.
Back then, most Utah County residents couldn’t have told you the difference between American ice cream and gelato. Rather than pay $3 for a serving of premium gelato, most customers preferred to go next-door for a family-size bucket of America ice cream for the same price. Although Ronaldo’s quickly developed a following of loyal gelato fans, the business wasn’t financially feasible, and Ron’s beloved gelateria had to close its doors.
The Creation of Culinary Crafts
After putting so much love and effort and money into creating Ronaldo’s, it was heartbreaking to see the doors close. Ron’s dream of sharing his love of Italian cuisine with all his Utah County neighbors disappeared overnight…but not completely.
Ron refused to part ways with his mantecatore, his prized gelato machine. Instead, Ron and Mary saw an opportunity to launch a catering company and to feature house-made gelato as a unique offering. That catering company, of course, turned out to be Culinary Crafts, 27-time Best of State and winner of numerous national and international awards.
Photo credit: Makenzie Jamias
What Is the Difference Between Gelato and American Ice Cream?
Before we dive into the differences, let’s be clear about our terms. The Italian word “gelato” refers to frozen dairy desserts in general, including what Americans call ice cream. So if you gave American ice cream to an Italian, they would probably call it gelato, although they might qualify it as gelato americano (American ice cream) or gelato industriale (mass-produced ice cream).
With that in mind, gelato and American ice cream are two very different desserts, and the differences mostly come down to their ingredients and how they’re made.
- Taste and Texture
Gelato tends to have a creamier texture and more intense flavors than ice cream. Gelato is made mostly with cream, milk, sugar, flavorings, and sometimes egg yolks. It’s churned slowly to create a denser, smoother texture and more concentrated flavor than American ice cream. - Fat Content
Since gelato tastes silkier and creamier than ice cream, it’s easy to assume that gelato must have a higher fat content. Actually, the opposite is true.American-style ice cream is made with a lot of cream (of course), so it typically has anywhere from 10-16 percent butterfat, which is the natural fat found in cream and milk. Premium brands of ice cream have even more butterfat. Although some American brands use 5-7% butterfat, these cannot be labeled “ice cream” under U.S. law, so they might be labeled “ice milk” or “frozen dessert.”
Gelato, on the other hand, uses little or no cream, so it has a much lower percentage of butterfat, generally around 3-9 percent. This explains why gelato flavors are more intense. Even though the buttermilk in ice cream is delicious, it coats the palate and masks other, more subtle, flavors. Gelato allows its flavoring ingredients—chocolate, stracciatella, caramel, hazelnut, berries, crema, pistachio, zabaglione, and so many more—to shine through.
Photo credits: Angela Howard
- Air Content
Part of the reason gelato tastes smoother and creamier than ice cream is because of their relative air content. Ice cream is churned quickly which beats a lot of air into the mixture, making it fluffy and easy to scoop. When you take a bite of ice cream, as much as half of what you’re eating is air!
By contrast, gelato is churned slowly and incorporates far less air, making gelato denser and creamier than ice cream. The very creamiest, richest, and densest type of gelato (like the zero overrun gelato made by Culinary Crafts) has no added air at all.
- Serving Temperature
Since gelato is so much denser, it can maintain its structural integrity at warmer temperatures than ice cream can. Ice cream needs to be stored at 0° F or below, and it’s best served at 10° F or colder. (Those low temperatures are what lead to the notorious “brain freeze” experience of eating ice cream too fast.) Traditional Italian gelato is ideally served about 5 to 10 degrees warmer, which had several advantages.
First, cold temperatures numb the senses, making it more difficult to taste the flavors of ice cream fully, With gelato’s slightly higher serving temperature, we can experience the flavors more fully and intensely.
Second, the higher temperature makes gelato smoother and creamier. Have you ever noticed how gelato looks shiny and silky in a display case? The slightly higher serving temperature gives gelato that signature smooth and velvety look and mouthfeel.
Photo credits: Kelli Bramble
What is Zero Overrun Gelato?
Zero overrun gelato is gelato made with little to no air incorporated during the churning and freezing process.
The term overrun refers to the amount of air that is whipped into a frozen dessert as it is churned. Traditional ice cream may contain up to 100% overrun (meaning that a gallon of ingredients will be expanded to two gallons of finished ice cream). Authentic gelato typically has much less overrun, and the gelato made at Culinary Crafts has no overrun at all.
Zero overrun gelato brings out flavors in their purest frozen form. Without air pockets separating the ingredients, each spoonful contains a higher concentration of flavor. Fresh fruit tastes brighter. Chocolate becomes richer. Pistachio, hazelnut, vanilla, and seasonal flavors reveal subtle notes that would be lost in lighter, highly-aerated frozen desserts.
Our zero overrun gelato is made the traditional Italian way, one small batch at a time, in the same mantecatore that Ron brought back from Florence This time-honored process preserves the integrity of each ingredient, creating a gelato experience that is remarkably pure, intensely flavorful, and unlike anything you’ve tasted before.
Photo credits: Pepper Nix and Logan Walker
Although he is retired, Ron still comes in regularly to help make gelato with the machine that played such a unique role in his life. Of the flavors we make today, Ron’s favorites include caramel, banana walnut, blueberry, mocha, dirty chai, pumpkin spice, and gianduia (chocolate and hazelnut butter). But his all-time favorite is still the one he stumbled onto in a tiny cobblestone street in Florence forty-five years ago: zabaione.
