• Question: Have you ever made icecream out of liquid nitrogen? Was it cold?

    Asked by bangersmash to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Tom Hartley

      Tom Hartley answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      No I haven’t but my wife (who teaches physics and helps teachers) has had some recently at some sort of science demo – apparently it was delicious – better than normal ice cream. But so far as I know you only use the liquid nitrogen to cool the mixture (not as part of the recipe).

    • Photo: Marieke Navin

      Marieke Navin answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      AArgh no i’ve not done this but I’ve always wanted to! Yes – it’s cold – liquid nitrogen boils at -196 deg C!

    • Photo: Stephen Curry

      Stephen Curry answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      We use liquid nitrogen a lot in our work, to freeze protein crystals (see here for an example).

      However, I confess we’ve never made ice cream – contravenes health and safety in the lab alas!

    • Photo: Pete Edwards

      Pete Edwards answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      We used to make ice cream using liquid nitrogen to cool the mix very quickly and so speed up the process on open days for students who wanted to visit our department.
      We don’t do this now, but the ice cream tasted OK I think.

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