Base Anita
Elenka product code 1140
A high-dose cream base at 300 grams per litre, built around an exclusive formulation for creaminess and lasting structure. It sits between a complete base and a low-dose one: most of the work is done, and there is still room to make the gelato yours.
Specification sheets are supplied to trade customers on request.
About Base Anita
Three hundred grams per litre is an interesting place to sit, and it is where a lot of working gelaterias actually want to be without knowing to ask for it.
The trade-off this dosage represents
The choice in this category runs along one axis: how much of the finished mix the base accounts for, and therefore how much of the decision-making you keep.
At the low end — 30 to 50 grams — you supply milk, cream and sugar, you own the balance sheet, and the gelato can be genuinely yours. It can also be genuinely wrong, and it takes a person who can do the arithmetic and wants to.
At the top — 350 to 500 grams — you add water and freeze. Nothing goes wrong and nothing is distinctive.
Base Anita at 300 is the useful middle. Most of the structural work is done, the skill requirement is modest, and there is still enough of the mix left over for the milk you choose and the paste you dose to matter.
What it is built for
Elenka describes an exclusive formulation aimed at creaminess and lasting structure. The second half of that is the part worth paying for.
Structure at extraction is the easy problem — almost any competent base produces a good tub at the moment it leaves the machine. Holding that structure through a service day is the real one: the cabinet opens two hundred times, the surface partially thaws and refreezes, and the ice crystals that form on each cycle are larger than the ones before. A high stabiliser load is what slows that, and it is invisible until the afternoon.
The diagnosis, when it does go wrong, is in Solving Ice Crystallisation.
Watch the total
Three hundred grams of base is a substantial fraction of the mix before any flavour goes in. Add a compound paste at 100 grams and forty per cent of the finished product arrived pre-composed by somebody else.
That is not a problem, but it is a number to look at rather than to assume — the sugars and fats in the paste and the base were each balanced against their own assumptions, not against each other. How to Balance a Gelato Recipe sets out the check.
Why no dosage is listed above
Elenka quotes 300 grams per litre. The high-dose table it appears in prints milk and water as two separate columns, and the extracted text does not show which one the figure sits under.
Three hundred grams against milk and 300 against water are different products — milk brings fat and protein that water does not, so the same figure produces a different mix. Publishing the wrong one would be a texture and costing error that survives every taste test until somebody changes the liquid, so the number is on this page as prose and not as a specification. Request the sheet and we will confirm it.
What we do not publish
Ingredients, allergens, shelf life and storage conditions are absent from this page because no Elenka specification sheet is held for the Australian range. Absent means the data is not held, never that the answer is no. Request the sheet for any product you are considering and we will obtain it.
Technical specifications
| Format | 1.6 kg pail, 10 per carton |
|---|---|
| Applications | gelato, single-portion dessert, semifreddo |
| Elenka product code | 1140 |
Full specification on request
The ingredient list, allergen declaration, shelf life and storage conditions for Base Anita are provided on the Elenka specification sheet. We supply it on request — please do not rely on the product name when answering a customer allergen enquiry.
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Frequently asked questions
Where does 300 grams sit in the range?
High-dose, but not complete. A complete base runs at 350 to 500 grams and needs only water; at 300 you are still supplying milk and some of the character, which leaves enough room to differentiate the finished gelato.
What does 'lasting structure' mean in practice?
It means the tub still eats correctly at four in the afternoon. Structure at extraction is easy; holding it through a service day of cabinet openings and partial melting is the harder problem, and it is what a high stabiliser load is buying.
Can I flavour it with any paste?
Yes, and that is its purpose — it is a white base for pastes to sit on. Watch the total though: 300 grams of base plus 100 grams of a compound paste is forty per cent of your mix arriving pre-composed, and the balance sheet should be checked rather than assumed.