In professional gelato and ice cream shops, a base is a pre-mixed blend of essential ingredients—typically including milk powders, sugars, stabilizers, emulsifiers, and sometimes fats—that forms the structural backbone of many recipes. Bases can be either commercially produced (from ingredient suppliers) or custom-made in-house.

A base simplifies production by standardizing the foundation for every batch. It allows for rapid flavor development and is particularly useful in busy shop environments where efficiency and consistency are critical.

How Shops Operate: Pasteurization, Batch Freezing, and Workflow

In most artisanal shops, production is built around two main pieces of equipment:

• Pasteurizer: Used to heat the mix (base + flavorings, or just base) to kill pathogens and hydrate stabilizers, ensuring safety and proper texture.
• Batch Freezer: Used to churn and freeze the pasteurized mix, introducing air (overrun) and forming the final product texture.

Typical workflow using bases:

1. Prepare the base (either in-house or using a commercial blend).
2. Pasteurize the base (often in large batches, then cooled and aged).
3. Store the base (usually in the pasteurizer).
4. For each flavor: Take a measured amount of base, add the specific flavor ingredients (pistachio paste, fruit purée, chocolate, etc.) and other ingredients to balance the recipe, mix, and process through the batch freezer.

This allows for large-scale, consistent production: one big batch of base can be split into many small batches for different flavors, saving both time and labor.

From Scratch vs. Using a Base

Making and Balancing from Scratch

• Process:
  Every recipe is built ingredient by ingredient, starting with raw milk, cream, sugars, stabilizers, etc. The mix must be balanced for proper fat, sugar, solids, and freezing properties.
• Pros:
  • Total control over each ingredient.
  • Maximum flexibility for customization and innovation.
  • Ability to create “signature” products with unique profiles.
  • Full knowledge of every component—no surprises.
• Cons:
  • Time-consuming, especially when making many different flavors.
  • Higher skill requirement for recipe balancing.
  • Greater risk of mistakes, especially if staff turnover is high or if not all employees are highly trained.
  • Inconsistency between batches if procedures aren’t followed exactly.

Working with a Base

• Process:
  A pre-balanced mix is made (or purchased), pasteurized, and stored. For each batch, just add the required flavoring and process as usual.
• Pros:
  • Major time savings—base is prepared/pasteurized in bulk, reducing repetitive labor.
  • Simplifies training—staff only need to learn one core recipe.
  • Consistency—reduces batch-to-batch variation and risk of errors.
  • Faster production and easier scaling to meet demand.
  • Faster recipe development for new flavors—just add flavor to base, adjust as needed.
• Cons:
  • Less flexibility to tweak structural components for each flavor.
  • May require multiple base types for different styles (e.g., fruit vs. cream vs. chocolate).
  • If using commercial bases, possible lack of transparency in ingredient details (clean label considerations).
  • Over-reliance on a standard base can limit product differentiation unless custom bases are developed.

Why Many Shops Use Bases

• Efficiency:
  Shops need to offer a wide range of flavors daily, often switching production rapidly. Using a base means most of the work is done upfront—just add the flavor and churn.
• Consistency:
  Bases help guarantee that every scoop has the same texture and mouthfeel, regardless of the operator or time of day.
• Food Safety:
  Pasteurizing in large batches improves microbiological safety and makes compliance with food regulations easier.
• Cost Control:
  Buying or making bases in bulk can lower ingredient costs and minimize waste.

Ice Cream Calc Features for Working with Bases

To better support working with bases, Ice Cream Calc now includes a suite of features specifically designed for base-based production:

1. Extract Base from Recipes

• How it works:
  Select multiple recipes in ICC; the function analyzes them and extracts the common (least variable) ingredients and their typical weights. This allows you to formalize your “house base” from recipes you already make, or identify the structural backbone of your menu.
• Practical Example:
  If you select several classic milk-based gelato recipes, ICC can tell you which ingredients and ratios appear in all of them—making it easy to set your own shop base.

2. Apply Base to a Recipe

• How it works:
  When you add a base to an existing recipe, ICC automatically deducts overlapping ingredients (e.g., sucrose, milk powder, dextrose) in the recipe from what’s already present in the base.
• Benefit:
  Lets you extract common ingredients from multiple recipe and convert to a base.

3. Balance Base (Automatic Balancer)

• How it works:
  Add a base and your flavoring ingredient(s) (hazelnut paste, fruit, cocoa, etc.). ICC calculates what is missing and automatically adds the right quantities of standard ingredients (e.g., sugars, milk solids, stabilizers) to achieve the optimal balance for structure, freezing point, and texture.
• Benefit:
  A very quick way to create new recipes using bases. Just select your base and flavor and use this function and you are done.

Practical Tips for Shops

• Develop more than one base if needed:
  Fruit gelato, chocolate, and dairy-forward flavors sometimes require slightly different structures for best results.
• Leverage ICC’s tools:
  Extract and formalize your current recipes as a base, apply them for faster production, and balance automatically for new flavors.

Summary

Using a base—whether commercial or house-made—can transform the efficiency and consistency of gelato and ice cream production, especially in high-volume or multi-flavor environments. With the addition of base-support features in Ice Cream Calc, you can now extract, apply, and balance bases quickly and with confidence, saving time and ensuring your product quality remains high.

Movie

The Ice Cream Calc has long been a trusted platform for frozen dessert formulation. Now, with the integration of advanced AI capabilities, it is evolving into an even more powerful tool. This major upgrade introduces intelligent features designed to streamline your workflow, enhance precision, and inspire creativity—whether you are a professional artisan or a passionate home creator. From ice cream and gelato to sorbet, the Ice Cream Calc with AI helps you formulate smarter, faster, and better.

AI Dropdown Button

The new AI tools are found in several places. There is a new AI button in the main dialog and the ingredient AI features are found in the Ingredient dialog, Edit ingredient dialog and the USDA database dialog.

Smarter Ingredient Importing with AI

From Names and Labels to Complete Formulation Data

Bringing ingredients into Ice Cream Calc is now faster and more intelligent than ever. Just type an ingredient name, paste a nutrition label, or pull data directly from the USDA database—AI handles the rest.

What sets this apart is AI’s ability to calculate formulation-critical values that aren’t typically found on standard nutrition labels, including:

• Milk solids-not-fat (MSNF)
• Precise sugar profiles for accurate PAC and POD
• Butterfat, cocoa fat, and cocoa solids
• Estimated water content using ash data

It also identifies complex or compound ingredients and quickly fills in missing macro data, eliminating guesswork and manual calculations from your workflow.

Ingredient from AI dialog

Nutrient label dialog

USDA dialog

Seamless Recipe Integration via GPT JSON Export

From Chat to Calc in seconds

Creating and importing recipes into Ice Cream Calc is now faster and smarter. Type an ingredient name, paste a nutrition label, and let AI handle the rest. With GPT integration—such as The Art of Homemade Ice Cream by Dave Del Grande—you can instantly generate ICC-compatible JSON recipe files. Just say “Export to ICC,” and a ready-to-paste JSON file is produced immediately.

If ICC doesn’t recognize an ingredient in the JSON file, it uses fuzzy matching to suggest the closest alternative. You can also create or assign new ingredients on the fly.

The result?

Recipes can be created, validated, and imported into your formulation workspace in just a few clicks.

New dialog

AI-Guided Recipe Creation

Craft Recipes from Scratch with Intelligent Prompts

Starting a new recipe is now easier than ever. Just enter a name, choose a style (ice cream, gelato, sorbet, etc.), and add a brief description as an option. Ice Cream Calc will launch a GPT session with a tailored, pre-filled prompt designed to generate a JSON-formatted recipe based on your input.

Once the recipe is generated, simply copy the JSON file. The ICC will automatically detect it from your clipboard and import it instantly. There are no formatting hassles or guesswork—just seamless recipe creation from concept to formulation.

For more info and examples look at the Online Recipe Dialog.

One-Click Import of Online Recipes

Turn Web Finds into Formulation-Ready Files

Found a great recipe online?

No need to retype it. Paste the URL or the full recipe text into Ice Cream Calc’s AI import dialog. Ice Cream Calc will launch a GPT session with a tailored, pre-filled prompt designed to generate a JSON-formatted recipe.

Once the recipe is generated, simply copy the JSON file. The ICC will automatically detect it from your clipboard and import it instantly.

Online recipe dialog

Built-in AI Prompts for Deep Recipe Insight

Analyze, Understand, and Perfect Every Mix

Ice Cream Calc now features over 20 intelligent prompts designed to deliver instant, in-depth analysis of your active recipe. You can send your formulation to GPT for expert-level feedback on texture, balance, structure, and more with a single click.

Example prompts include:

• “Analyze this recipe.”
• “Which style or category does this best match?”
• “Is this recipe balanced? What would you change?”
• “It’s too icy—how can I improve the texture?”
• “Break down the sugars and their impact on PAC and sweetness.”
• “Estimate the nutrition per 100g, including sugar content.”

Each prompt is tailored to your current mix and returns clear, actionable insights. You can edit existing prompts or create your own to match your workflow and formulation goals.

Custom GPT

If you click the “Open GPT Link” a web browser will open with the Custom GPT.
Here you can ask all types of ice cream questions.
If you ask the GPT to create a recipe you can then say “Export to ICC” to create a compatible JSON data that can be imported when you create a new recipe.

Run this prompt. You will get a reply with a recipe.

Now type in “Export to ICC” and the GPT will generate JSON data that you can copy to the clipboard.

Then in the calculator you can create a new recipe and press the “Import JSON recipe” button.

Final Thoughts

With AI now integrated throughout the Ice Cream Calc—powered by the GPT, The Art of Homemade Ice Cream by Dave Del Grande—the formulation process is faster, smarter, and more insightful. Whether importing ingredients, transforming online recipes, or fine-tuning a complex mix, these tools support (not replace) your creativity and craft.

And this is just the beginning. More AI-powered features are on the way—so stay tuned and let us know what you’d love to see next.

The report system uses a template system with tags (Merge Fields). The template contains data tags that are replaced with data when the report is generated. The report template .TX and the generated report are displayed in the report editor, a word like word processor. You can toggle between the generated report and the template using the shortkey F5. So, you can generate the report and then switch to template mode and make adjustments and toggle back to the generated report again. This makes designing the report template very easy.

The report word processor can also print the report and you can export the report to different formats like PDF and DOCX.

Merge Field Report Systems

Merge Fields are placeholders used in documents, typically in templates, to insert dynamic content. They represent specific data points, such as a name, address, or date, which are replaced with actual values when generating a document. In reporting systems, a template containing merge fields is populated with data from an external source, such as a database or user input, to create personalized reports.

Report dialog

There are some settings in the report dialog that are important when generating reports.
— Highlighted Uppercase
— Highlighted Bold
— First letter uppercase
These settings controls how the ingredients in the ingredient list are formatted.
— Recipe weights
These weights can be used to create reports for different recipe weights
— Best before
This setting will be used to create a BestBefore date that can be used in the reports.
— Serving size
Serving size is used to create nutrition data in some countries (ex. US). So, to get correct nutritional data in the report the Serving size needs to be set correctly. If you double click on then “Serving size” text the weight for 2/3 CUP will be set. This is the US serving size for ice cream.

Creating a new report

To create a new report press the “+” button below the Reports list. This will open a file dialog where you can create a new report template file or select an existing file. After you have selected a file the report word processor will open in Edit mode.

You can now add DATA tags to the report (Merge Fields). Let’s add the Name of the recipe and the ingredient list.

Start by changing the Table to Data.

Now double click on Name. This will add the tag <<Data.Name>> to the report.

Press enter in the document to set the cursor on a new row.
Now, double click on INGREDIENTS to add the <<Data.INGREDIENTS>> tag. It should look like this.

Now press F5 to generate the report.

At this point we can press F5 again to toggle back to edit mode and do some formatting of the template. We create a new line between the name and the ingredients and we make the recipe name larger. Something like this.

Press F5 again to generate the report.

Now we are happy with the design and can close the report window. When you close you will be prompted to save the report template.

This describes the basic workflow when creating reports. You use F5 to toggle between edit mode and report mode. In edit mode you can add data to the report and format and design the report.

Data

The available DATA tags are organized in Tables. Each table represents different type of data. The available tables are.

Report

The data in this table contains information about the report and report template

Data

This is the basic data about your recipe. It contains for example the name of the recipe, the ingredient list and allergens as well as other data about the recipe.

RecipeData

There are two RecipeData tables. The difference is that in this table all the add-ins has been merged into the recipe. This means that all nutrition information includes the add-ins. The RecipeData table contains the same data as the Data found in the ICC main window.

RecipeData2

This table is exactly the same as the Data found in the ICC main window. This means that add-ins are not merged into the recipe and the Nutrition information in this table does not include the add-ins. So, depending on what type of report you are making it is important to choose the correct table.

Ingredients

This table contains the ingredients in the recipe.

Addins

This table contains the add-ins of the recipe

Infusions

This table contains only the name of the add-ins that are flagged as infusions in the recipe.

Groups

The Groups table contains data when using Recipe groups and not the current recipe when creating the report.

Adding data

As you saw in the example before you just place the cursor where you want your data tag to be placed and then double+click at the tag you want to add.

Adding tables

To get a list of for example the ingredients in the recipe you have to use the Insert table button.
Let’s add a table with the ingredients to our report.
Start by selecting the Ingredients table when you are in Edit mode and press the Insert table button.

Now press the Table and select 3 columns. This will add a table to the report. It should look like this.

Let’s fill in the headers and add data tags. We add Name, Weight and W%. It should look like this.

Now press F5 to generate the report.

If you toggle back to Edit mode by pressing F5 we can double click in the table to bring up the Table design dialog where we can select different styles and colors for the table.

Setting another style for the table and pressing F5 again will generate something like this.

You can of course format the headers to be a little nicer as well.

Barcodes

You can also add barcodes and QR codes to the report. In Edit mode you go to the Insert tab and select the barcode type you like to insert. Here I select Code128.

Now to connect the barcode to a data tag you will double+click the barcode to bring up the barcode properties dialog.

Now to select a data tag you will press the “…” button in the Datasource field and select the tag you like to connect. Let’s select the Data.Name tag.

Now press OK and then F5 to generate the report.

Example: Recipe report

In this example we will create a report that can be used to save or print your recipe. It will contain the recipe name and all ingredients as well as instructions.

Create a new report an name if Recipe

In Edit mode we add the <<Data.Name>> tag and format it. We also add the total weight of the recipe with the <<Data.Weight>> tag. Then we add a two column table of the ingredients and finally the instructions in the <<Data.Note>> tag.

This is what the template should look like.

Press F5 to generate the report.

Example: EU Nutrient label and ingredients

Let’s make a report to show the ingredient list and nutrient label. Create a new report and call it NutrientsEU. First we add <<Data.INGREDIENTS>>. Now we go to the Insert tab and select Table. Create a 2×8 table. We add text and data to the table for Energy, Fat, Saturated fat, corbohydrates, sugar, protein and salt.

We can also edit the format of a tag (Merge Field) by right clicking and select properties or double clicking the tag. Here we can set the number of decimals and other settings. So we change the Numeric format to one decimal F1 for all weight fields except Salt.

Press F5 to run the report.

A balanced recipe is one that achieves a desirable texture, creaminess, flavor, sweetness, and firmness. These characteristics are influenced by the choice of ingredients and their proportions, which are collectively referred to as the working ratio. This working ratio specifies the percentages of each ingredient used, such as Cream 30%, Milk 40%, Sugar 15%, and so on.

To create a well-balanced recipe, it is essential to calculate the precise quantity of each ingredient, a process known as “balancing the recipe.” To perform this calculation, we utilize what is known as the functional ratio. The functional ratio involves the interplay of ice cream properties like fat, sugar, solids, MSNF (Non-fat Milk Solids), among others.

The approach involves establishing a set of target functional properties that the ice cream should exhibit. These targets differ based on the type of ice cream being crafted; for instance, Gelato has distinct target properties compared to regular ice cream or sorbet.

The calculator offers various tools to manipulate ingredient quantities, and it is often advisable to begin with automatic balancing and then fine-tune the recipe manually.

This post will mainly focus on the different tools and methods available in the calculator to balance a recipe and not so much on the exact properties for different types of ice creams.

Target properties

So, before you start balancing a recipe you need to decide on a set of target properties you like the recipe to have. These properties are usually different depending on the type and flavor of ice cream you are making. They are also very much a personal choice so there are no strict rules what these parameters are. However there are some general guidelines you can follow and in the calculator there are several different charts to select from. The charts contains the target properties and it is the charts and panels that the automatic balancing uses.
In the calculator there is a drop down with the available charts and there is an Online charts button where you can download charts for different types of ice cream. You should view these charts as a starting point and adjust them to your personal style. If you open the online charts there is a description with every chart that explains what it is used for.

When you get used to using the charts you will eventually like to modify them and fine tune them to your needs.

Charts and Panels

The chart and panels display Data items. In the chart this data item is displayed as a bar with the current value of the recipe. In the panels it displays the current value.
If you set a range to the Data item it will be used in the automatic balancing. If no range is set it will be ignored. Also, if the same property exists both in the chart and in the panels the property in the chart will be used in the balancing.
When a data item (property) has a range they are color coded. So, if the current recipe is inside the range the color is green and if it is outside it is red. If no range has been set it is yellow.
You can set both a Min value and/or a Max value for every item.

When creating you own charts or adjusting existing charts there are a few important things to consider.

• Avoid conflicting properties. For example don’t set the Total fat target larger than Total solids.
• Make sure the recipe has the property. For example if you don’t have any emulsifiers in the recipe don’t use a target property for emulsifiers.
• Make sure the recipe contains enough ingredients to perform the balancing. For example if you only have one sucrose as the only sugar in the recipe it will be hard to control both sweetness and hardness (POD and Serving temp).
• Adjust the ranges of the target properties. The tighter the ranges are the more exact you can control the recipe properties but the balancing will be more difficult. So, decide what is most important and set tighter ranges there and relax ranges on properties that are not as important.
• Take notes and record the recipes you make and adjust the charts to improve.
• Base charts on successful recipes. If you make a perfect chocolate ice cream use the resulting properties and base a chart on them to use for future recipes.

Guiding the balancing

When balancing you will use the chart and panels and set ranges for the data properties to control the balancing. You can also control individual ingredients by setting min/max ranges or locking the weight excluding it from automatic balancing.

Target min/max ranges

When you add a Data item to the chart or a panel you can set min and/or max values for that data. If min and/or max is enabled this data item will be used in the automatic balancing.
If you set both min and max the value must be inside this range to be valid.
If you only set min then the value must be equal or greater than the min value to be valid.
If you only set max then the value must be equal or less than the max value to be valid.
So, this is how you control the automatic balancing.

Lock ingredient

To exclude an ingredient from the automatic balancing you can lock it. This is done with the square to the right of the ingredient name. Clicking this box will toggle it from Green to Red. When it is green the weight is allowed to be changed by the balancing and when it is red the balancing is not allowed to change the weight.
This is an important feature and you should use it to exclude for example flavoring ingredients from the balancing.
For example, if you make a chocolate ice cream you know you need a certain amount of chocolate to get the correct flavor. If you don’t lock this ingredient the balancing might reduce or increase it. This is not what you want!

Above the ingredient Hazelnut paste has been locked and will not be changed when balancing.

Ingredient min/max ranges

Another way to control ingredients is to set a min and max value for the Weight % of that ingredient. So, instead of locking it you can allow a certain range.
Instead of locking the Hazelnut paste in the above image we can set a range instead. It can look like this where we will allow the weight of the Hazelnut paste to be between 8% and 10% of the final recipe.

Min % and Max % can be changed in the table or by dragging the “red” dots in the W% trackbar.

Important! Some ingredients in the default database has both min and max set to 0%. This is usually set for flavor ingredients and if you don’t change this in the recipe they will not change when balancing. So, if an ingredient is Locked OR min=max=0% the weight will not change when balancing.

Manual balancing

Manual balancing just means that you manually change the recipe until you are within acceptable values for the targets you have set up. There are multiple ways to modify the weight of the ingredients and most of the are interactive so you can see in real time how it affects the chart and panels. The Undo/Redo system is also very useful here to undo changes that did not work out.

Weight

The easiest way is just to change the weight of the selected ingredient. You can do this with the slider above the recipe or by typing in the weight in the Weight edit.

You can also press the “…” button above the recipe for more weight tools.

If you just press OK the weight will change to the value you typed.
If you press the “Limit recipe to ingredient” the rest of the ingredients will be automatically scaled so that all data is the same as before the change. This is useful if you for example have a recipe that requires 300 g of milk BUT you only have 200 g milk available.
If you press “Keep recipe total weight” the rest of the ingredients will be automatically scaled so that the total weight of the recipe does not change.

Ratio slider

The Ratio slider is a very useful feature. What you do is select two or more ingredients and you can change the ratio between these ingredients.
Normally you use this to adjust the ratio between the sugars in the recipe or the milk and cream in the recipe.

When dragging the sliders the recipe will adjust in real time, this makes it easy to see how the changes affects the recipe. The total weight will not change so when you drag one slider the other slider will adjust (unless you check the Single mode checkbox).

PAC POD buttons

The POD -/+ and PAC -/+ will do a quick automatic balancing to try to decrease/increase the PAC or POD of the recipe.
So, say your recipe has a POD (Sweetness) of 160 and you like to increase the POD a little but keep all other data the same. Instead of adjusting the charts or panels and perform a new automatic balance you can press the POD + button and the calculator will adjust the chart and panels internally and perform a balance operation where just the POD is increased a little.
The POD controls the sweetness of the recipe and the PAC controls the Serving temp.

Automatic balancing

This is one of the main features of the calculator.

When you press this button the calculator will try to adjust the weights in the ingredients so that all targets are reached (green).
I usually start with doing an automatic balance operation and then I can fine tune the recipe or sometimes fine tune the chart until I’m happy with the result.

Fine tune charts

After performing a balance operation you might not be 100% happy with the result. This is when you can fine tune the ranges in the chart and panels to further control the balancing.
Say you have a chart with Total solids in a quite large range from 35%-45% and after balancing you have 36%. This is fine as it is within the range you have set up. But you might want it to be higher so what you do is to click on the Total solids bar and change the range to say 39% to 42% to narrow the allowed amount of Total solids. Then press the Balance button again to balance it towards the updated chart.
Another thing you might want to do is when you are happy with a certain value. You can narrow the range of that data item to the current value. Click on the bar in the chart to bring up the Edit Data dialog and press the “Current min/max” button. This will change the min/max range to the current value +/- 5%.

Failed balancing

There are multiple reasons a balance operation might fail.
The most common reason is of course that it’s impossible to reach all the targets with the ingredients used in the recipe and/or the targets you have set up.
In the above example the only sugar in the recipe is sucrose and it is very hard to control both the sweetness (POD) and Serving temp with only one sugar.
When the balancing fails you need to analyze the recipe and you targets and try to figure out what you need to change for the balancing to succeed. You might need to add another ingredient or you might need to adjust the chart. For example if your chart has Emulsifiers in it but your recipe does not have any emulsifiers it’s of course impossible to reach that target. So, you have to either remove Emulsifiers from the chart (or disable min/max) or you have to add an Emuslifer to the recipe. In the case above we add another sugar Dextrose and balance again.

Compare balancing

Can be used to make a new recipe similar to an existing recipe and when exchanging ingredients in the current recipe.
If you have a compare recipe activated you can balance the current recipe to the compare recipe.

Click the “…” button to the right of Compare button and select “Balance to compare recipe”.
Remember that pressing the Compare button takes a snapshot of the current recipe and displays it in orange bars in the chart.
Balancing to the compare recipe is especially useful in two scenarios.
1. You have a recipe and need to replace an ingredient with another ingredient. When you do this replacement the properties might change a little. To balance the recipe back to its original balancing you can first press the Compare button to save a snapshot of the recipe, then you replace the ingredient and finally press the “Balance to compare recipe”.
2. The second case is if you have a recipe you know is well balanced and you create a similar recipe you can load the first recipe and press Compare and then load the second recipe and balance it to have the same properties as the first.

There is another option in the “…” drop down. Create chart using compare recipe. This will create a new chart with the ranges set to the values in the compare recipe.

Nutrient balancing and reverse engineering

Another way to use the balancing is when reverse engineering an ingredient or another ice cream using the nutritional values of that product. The calculator has a tool to create a chart from a nutrient label that you then can use to balance your recipe.
To the right of the Nutrients button is a small button “Chart from nutrients”. Pressing this button will open a dialog that creates a new chart using nutrient label data.

Here you fill in the nutrient data you think is important and press the Create chart button to create a new chart with this data. You don’t need or most probably should add all nutrient data to the chart. Add what you think is important.
One important thing here is the “Balance ingredients in order” checkbox. If this checkbox is checked the balancing will keep the order of the ingredients sorted by weight. So the first ingredient will have the highest weight and the last ingredient will have the smallest weight. What you do is to add ingredients to the recipe in the same order they appear in the ingredient list of the product you try to reverse engineer. By checking this box the balancing knows that the ingredients are in the correct order sorted by weight.

Control ratios between ingredients

You can use almost all the data in the Data dialog for balancing. But sometimes you might need data that is not available by default. To handle this you can create you own calculations to create new data items.
In the Data dialog you press the Add button, this takes you to the Formula dialog where you can create a new data item.

Here is an example that creates a new data item Protein/Fat that calculates the percentage of protein of total fat.
By adding your own Data items you can control the balancing in great detail.
You can also create Data items to control the ratio between different ingredients. So, say you like to limit the amount of Dextrose to Sucrose. Then you can create this Data item.

Then when adding this Data item to the chart or a panel you can set min/max ranges.

Here we use the new Data item we created to make sure that Dextrose is between 10% to 25% of the amount of Sucrose.
Using Formulas to create your own Data items is a powerful tool that enables you to control the balancing in great detail.
Note! You can also add up to six user defined variables to your ingredients that can be used to add additional data if you need to control something that is not in the original database. For example you can add more detailed sugar composition of fat composition to your ingredients.

Examples

Now follows a number of automatic balancing examples.
You should download the Online charts if you like to follow and test the examples in the calculator. The online charts are available by pressing the Database button under the list of available charts.

Example: Simple example

This example will use the Online charts “Gelato base” and “Ice cream base”.
Start by selecting the “Gelato base” chart,
Use the Wizard to create a “No flavor” recipe for Gelato. (Fior di latte in V3)

This will create a recipe like this.

Ok, this is a Gelato recipe. What if we like to change this to an Ice cream recipe?
What we do is to change the chart to “Ice cream base”.

As you can see some bars are red and out of balance.
Just click the Balance button to balance the recipe for Ice cream instead of Gelato.

Example: Replace an ingredient

You have a recipe but for some reason you need to replace one of the ingredients.
Start by selecting the “Ice cream base” chart.
Use the Wizard to create a “Strawberry” recipe for Gelato.

You will get something like this.

Now we want to replace the Strawberries with Mango. Here you have two options, you can replace the strawberries and just press Balance again to re-balance or you can balance to a compare recipe. I will show both methods.
First let’s just replace the Strawberry with Mango and balance.
Select Strawberry in the list and press the Replace ingredient button and select Mango from the database.

This will give you this recipe.

First we need to lock the Mango to fix the weight and remove it from balancing. So press the small green box to the right of Mango and press Balance.

This will give you a new balanced recipe.

The second option is to balance to a Compare recipe.
So, Undo until you are back to the Strawberry recipe.
Press the Compare button to take a snapshot of the strawberry recipe.
Replace the Strawberry with Mango the same way as before.
Lock the Mango ingredient and press the “…” button to the right of the Compare button and select “Balance to compare recipe”

This will balance the Mango recipe to be similar to the Strawberry Compare recipe.

As you can see it’s not identical so you might want to make small adjustments until you are happy with the result.
The Balance to compare recipe can of course be used anytime and not just when replacing an ingredient. To see the chart used by the Balance to compare recipe option you can press the “…” button and select “Create chart using compare recipe”, this will also allow you to modify the chart and ranges if you need to.

Example: Lock ingredients

To illustrate why you need to lock some ingredients we make a Pistachio recipe.
Select the “Gelato Chocolate and Nuts” chart.
In the Wizard we select Pistachio and create a Gelato recipe.

This will produce a recipe like this.

Please note here that the weight of the Pistachio is in this example 75.23g, 7.523% of total weight.
Now we change the chart to “Ice cream chocolate and nuts”

If we just press Balance now we will get a new balanced recipe for Ice cream instead of Gelato.

But because we did not lock the Pistachio the W% of Pistachio has increased to over 14%.
So, in the original recipe we had 7.5% Pistachio and in this new recipe we have 14.4%.
This might be OK but to make sure the weight of Pistachio does not change we Lock the Pistachio before balancing. So, undo the changes and press the green box to the right of Pistachio to lock it and exclude it from balancing.

Now press Balance and we get a new balanced Ice cream recipe where the weight of the Pistachio is the same as before.

Example: Ingredient ratios

This example will show how to add a user defined data item using a formula to control the ratio between Dextrose and Sucrose in a recipe.
We start by pressing the Data button to bring up the Data dialog. Here we press Add to open the Formula dialog and we create the following data item. 100*[I_Dextrose]/[I_Sucrose]

This will create a new Data item “Dextrose/Sucrose” that calculates the percentage of Dextrose of Sucrose.
Note! To create formulas with ingredient names you need to have a recipe loaded that contains the ingredients you like to use in your formula.
Now we go back to the recipe and adds a new Panel with this data item. (You could also add this to the chart if you like instead of to a panel).

Now we set the Min/Max range to 10% to 25% and press OK to add the panel.

To test this new Panel we go to the Wizard and creates a Gianduja Gelato recipe.

As you can see the Wizard does not have this rule when the recipe is generated and the Dextrose/Sucrose panel is red and out of range.
Ok, we press the Balance button to re-balance the recipe to see if we can get the Dextrose/Sucrose rule in range.

In this case we succeeded and managed to re-balance and get all properties in range including our Dextrose/Sucrose data item.

Example: Reverse engineer an ice cream recipe

Here we will try to reverse engineer a simple commercial ice cream recipe.

Häagen-Dazs Vanilla
Ingredients: Cream, Skim milk, Cane sugar, Egg yolks, Vanilla extract
Nutrients

Step one is to start a new recipe and add the ingredients in the same order as above.

OK, there are a few things we don’t know from the ingredient list and nutrients of the Häagen-Dazs ice cream. We don’t know the fat% for the cream and milk and we don’t know the weight of each ingredient. What we do know is that the ingredients are listed by weight, so the ingredient with the highest weight comes first etc. And even if we don’t know the exact fat% for the cream and milk we can use what we have it will still be possible to reverse engineer this recipe.

Now we type in weights for the ingredients, we don’t need to worry too much yet, it’s just to get a starting point. Something like this.

The next step is to create a chart that we can use to balance the recipe. We use the “Chart from nutrients” to create a chart from the nutritional values above.

Fill in the Serving size and nutrients. Also, we only select to use Calories, Total fat, Carbs, Total sugars and Protein in the chart. We also make sure the Balance ingredients in order is checked. Press Create chart.

Make sure you don’t have any panels with min/max ranges set.
The last thing we do before balancing is to set the Vanilla extract to 0.5 Weight% and lock it so that the balancing will not change it. When reverse engineering it’s recommended to lock ingredients like vanilla, stabilizers and emulsifiers before balancing as they don’t contribute much to the final result and you can manually set them after balancing.

Now we press the Balance button.

We can now bring up the Nutrients dialog to compare our result with the original.

Energy 321.90 vs 320
Fat 21.02 vs 21
Carbs 26.16 vs 26
Sugar 25.5 vs 25
Protein 5.74 vs 6

As you can see we are pretty close to the original.

Reverse engineering like this can be useful to get a good starting point but usually the recipe needs some tweaking after and it’s much more difficult to reverse engineer recipes with lots of add-ins compared to pure flavors.

Important! When doing reverse engineering it’s very important you make sure the nutrient data for each ingredient you use in your recipe is correct as this kind of balancing works with nutrition data.