Flavor Profile
The Flavor Profile tool gives you a visual breakdown of how your ice cream will taste and feel based on its composition. Instead of reading raw numbers for fat, sugar, and solids, you see five intuitive scores plotted on a radar chart: Sweetness, Creaminess, Coldness, Body, and Scoopability.
Use it to understand your recipe at a glance, compare it against industry reference styles, or see how two of your recipes differ side by side.
How to Open the Flavor Profile
There are two ways to reach the Flavor Profile page:
- From the Tools page: Go to Tools in the main navigation and click the Flavor Profile card.
- From the Recipe Editor: While editing a recipe, click the Flavor Profile button (radar icon) in the Tools dropdown. This opens the page with your current recipe pre-selected and adds a Back to Recipe link so you can return easily.
Selecting a Recipe
When you open the Flavor Profile page, it automatically selects your current session recipe if one is active. Otherwise, it selects the first recipe in your collection.
To choose a different recipe, click the Select Recipe… button in the Settings panel on the left. This opens a recipe picker dialog where you can browse and select any of your saved recipes.
Understanding the Radar Chart
The radar chart plots five scores on a scale from 0 to 100. Each score is calculated from your recipe’s composition data. Here is what each dimension means:
Sweetness
How sweet your ice cream will taste. This is derived from POD (sweetening power), which accounts for the type and amount of sugars in your recipe, not just total sugar weight. A moderate score is around 40-60. Scores above 70 are quite sweet, which is typical for sorbets.
Creaminess
The rich, smooth mouthfeel your ice cream delivers. Milk fat is the biggest contributor (weighted more heavily than other fats), followed by emulsifiers and milk solids-not-fat (MSNF). A score of 50-70 is typical for standard ice cream, while 80+ indicates a super-premium texture.
Coldness
How intensely cold a spoonful feels when eaten. This depends on your recipe’s composition and the serving temperature. A score of 50 is typical. Above 60 feels noticeably cold, while below 40 feels mild and gentle on the palate. This score changes when you switch between Ice Cream and Gelato serving styles.
Body
The density and substance of your ice cream. Total solids are the main driver, with stabilizers having a strong effect and protein also contributing. Scores of 30-40 indicate a light, refreshing texture (like sorbet), 50-60 is standard, and 70+ is dense and chewy.
Scoopability
How easy your ice cream is to scoop at its serving temperature. This is calculated from the frozen water percentage at the serving temperature. A score of 100 means ideal scooping ease. The score drops if the ice cream is too hard (too much frozen water) or too soft (too little).
For a deeper dive into how scoopability and serving temperatures work, see Understanding Scoopability and Serving Temperatures.
Serving Style: Ice Cream vs Gelato
Below the recipe selector, you will find two chips for choosing the Serving Style: Ice Cream or Gelato. Each chip also displays the corresponding serving temperature for your recipe.
Switching between styles recalculates the Coldness and Scoopability scores because gelato is typically served at a warmer temperature than ice cream. This means gelato will generally show a lower Coldness score and a different Scoopability score compared to the same recipe served as ice cream.
Use this toggle to see how the same recipe would perform under different serving conditions.
Comparing Profiles
The Flavor Profile becomes especially powerful when you compare your recipe against a benchmark. There are two ways to compare:
Compare with a Reference Style
Use the Reference Style dropdown in the Settings panel to overlay a predefined benchmark on your chart. The available reference styles are:
- Super Premium Ice Cream – High fat (around 16%), rich and creamy, moderate sweetness
- Premium Ice Cream – Around 13% fat, a step up from standard
- Standard Ice Cream – Around 10% fat, the typical commercial profile
- Italian Gelato – Lower fat (around 6%), warmer serving temperature, sweeter
- Fruit Sorbet – No fat, high sweetness, lighter body
- Soft Serve – Low fat, served very warm, softer body
The reference profile appears as a dashed orange line on the radar chart, making it easy to spot where your recipe differs from the target style.
Compare with Another Recipe
Click the Select Recipe… button under “Or compare with recipe” to pick a second recipe from your collection. Its profile appears as a dashed orange overlay on the chart, just like a reference style. Click Clear comparison to remove it.
Selecting a reference style clears any recipe comparison, and vice versa, so you always see exactly one comparison at a time.
Scores Panel
On the left side of the page, below the settings, a Scores section displays the numeric value for each of the five dimensions. Each score is shown with an icon for quick identification:
- Cake icon – Sweetness
- Droplet icon – Creaminess
- Snowflake icon – Coldness
- Dumbbell icon – Body
- Ice cream icon – Scoopability
These numbers match the values plotted on the radar chart and give you a precise reading when you need exact figures rather than a visual impression.
What Do These Scores Mean?
Below the radar chart, expand the “What do these scores mean?” panel for a quick reference guide. This explains the typical ranges for each dimension so you can interpret your scores without leaving the page.
Tips
- Use the reference styles to check if your recipe matches the profile you are aiming for. If you are making gelato but your chart looks more like premium ice cream, you may need to adjust your fat content or serving temperature.
- Compare two of your own recipes to understand exactly what makes them taste different. The overlay makes it easy to see which dimensions changed.
- Toggle between Ice Cream and Gelato serving styles to see how the same recipe behaves at different serving temperatures without changing any ingredients.
- The scores are most useful as relative comparisons rather than absolute targets. Every recipe is different, and personal taste matters.