What Italian frozen dessert is made with milk and sugar?

What Italian frozen dessert is made with milk and sugar? The answer is gelato. It is an Italian style of ice cream typically based on whole milk, sugar, and natural flavorings, sometimes with eggs or cream.

Gelato is usually churned more slowly than American-style ice cream, incorporating less air and producing a denser texture. It also generally contains less butterfat—often about 6–9% in artisanal Italian gelato—so its flavors can taste especially direct and intense. Sugar does more than sweeten it: it also helps prevent the mixture from freezing into a hard block by interfering with ice-crystal formation.

The word gelato simply means “frozen” in Italian and can refer broadly to ice cream in Italian usage. In English, it usually means the denser Italian style. Some early forms are associated with Renaissance Florence, while the Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli helped popularize gelato in Paris after opening Café Procope in 1686.

A common mix-up is sorbetto, which is generally fruit, water, and sugar without dairy. Granita is also dairy-free and has a coarser, crystalline texture.