The anti-griddle is one of the most recent innovations that have had a definitive impact on frozen desserts (and other foods) as we know them. It was invented by Philip Preston, the president of PolyScience, an industrial lab-equipment manufacturer, in 2004 when Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea in Chicago, came to him with the idea of an instant-freezing device. What it does is almost instantly freeze a liquid into a solid or semisolid form, practically on contact with the frozen surface. The “griddle,” which is the surface the liquids are poured onto, measures 9 by 15 inches/23 by 38 cm, and it drops to temperatures as low as –34.4°C / –30°F, which is almost as cold as an average blast freezer. Some people believe that it freezes too hard. While most frozen desserts are kept at –10°C / 14°F for an ideal texture, –34.4°C / –30°F makes for a very hard product that can be described as crunchy.
