The balance between the scientist and the chef was put under the spotlight when the powders and potions of MSK Ingredients were used to produce a combination of flavours and textures at its first large scale demo at Castle College in Sheffield.

More than 40 chefs attended from a blend of town and country restaurants, some with Michelin stars attached, to learn about the science of ingredients from ice cream and sorbet stabilisers to hydrocolloids and emulsifiers.

Professor Tony Blake, one of the world's authorities on flavour and taste, was on hand to explain the elements that make a flavour occur, while MSK's development chef Vicky Endersen, who has worked for Michelin star establishments and was previously with Tom Aikens as his pastry chef, handled the practical side.

Using one of MSK's specialist ingredients such as maltodextrin enables chefs to make ice cream a more stable product. This white powder is produced from wheat starch and acts as a dispersing aid, flavour carrier and bulking agent. Endersen used it to produce smoked salmon ice cream using a Pacojet machine. Blake said the best way to describe the result was as a savoury mousse. Pea ice cream was similarly produced. “If you expect sweet ice cream, you won't like it,” he explained.

Savoury ice creams are not new having been very popular in Victorian times. It was only when the large companies introduced sweet varieties in the commercial world that savoury ones disappeared, said Blake.

He gave reasons for using a Pacojet saying it was important when you made ice cream to get small crystals and tiny droplets. “The energy you use to stir it increases the heat, which you don't want. The Pacojet gets around the problem. You freeze the whole lot in the deep freeze to 30º-40ºC and then use the steel cutting blade at high speed so that you cut right through all the ice and get the desired effect. You can even add ingredients to it such as Baileys. It's basically a grinding machine.”

Using stabilisers and the Pacojet brings the sugar and fat levels down and helps the fat and water content and sugar combine. If you don't use a stabiliser, more sugar has to be added to hold it, he explained.

Enderson says that maltodextrin frozen is very stable but once smoked salmon is added, even at low temperatures, it can give off a rancid taste so it needs to be added as and when required.

The group heard how the quickest way to make ice cream is to add liquid nitrogen, as it is so cold it freezes in seconds.

According to MSK, a stabiliser on milk provides a huge amount of volume and maximum mouth feel and a raspberry flavoured example was passed among the chefs.

Further tastings included a basic milk ice cream that tasted as if it had come straight from a Mr Whippy van. MSK estimates 50g of stabiliser per litre and confirmed that these ingredients will work in an ordinary ice cream machine.

Endersen assembled a number of flavour combinations for the chefs to sample to challenge their taste buds. What looked like an ordinary chocolate truffle was a combination of blue cheese and chocolate. She said it was made from a liquid blue cheese that had been mashed and added to milk chocolate.

The aftertaste came back to hit you with flavour but she says that it does work really well. “It's something you can make as an addition to a dish.”

Caviar and white chocolate – salt and sweet – was not everyone's favourite and Endersen admitted: “I don't want white chocolate with fish but that is not to say you can't mix it.”

Coffee and garlic went well together, while banana marshmallow with parsley was a combination you wouldn't think about at all in flavour pairing, said Blake, but the parsley lifts the flavour of the banana. Fresh pineapple and basil works mazingly well too, he said. Mango and pine was another unusual mix.

He said these pairings are a mixture of Heston Blumenthal's and lists of molecular pairings but it is all about perception of flavour. “When you get so used to a [flavour] combination it's hard to expect another. The key thing is to try them.”

He referred to one of Blumenthal's desserts at The Fat Duck restaurant that provides a ‘hot and cold' sensation in the mouth and what he describes as a complete illusion. The same compounds when they dissolve need energy and others don't and when you put them together this happens. It's just a cooling effect of the xylitol sugar, he says.

Those attending the demo were inspired by the possibilities these ingredients offered to chefs. Pastry chef Simon Spencer from Crewe Hall in Cheshire said it was a new experience for him and he thought it was fantastic. “It really opened my eyes to a different style and way of looking at food. The resource you get from bringing science into the kitchen is completely mind blowing,” he said.

Dan Smith, head chef at The Peacock at Rowsley, in Derbyshire, was equally impressed by the demo and gained a better understanding about how to use these types of ingredients to enhance dishes. “An opportunity to sit in a room with a guy like Tony Blake and ask questions … it's rare for chefs to get that,” said Smith.

Although there were many ingredients he didn't know how to use and got first hand knowledge about, he does use the gelling agent gellan gum at The Peacock. “We use gellan gum, which is the one that Heston Blumenthal raves about. We set sweetcorn purée with it and use it as pasta sheets for cannelloni. It looks like pasta but it tastes like sweetcorn. It's something different and no one else does that sort of thing.”

MSK joint managing director Stefan Priest said this was the company's first demo of its kind, but his plan was to stage a similar one in the south. “We are in talks with Westminster Kingsway College in London. It's not all about MSK but science as well. We want to bridge the gap between science and the culinary arts.”

Dates are still to be confirmed for the demos but one is on the cards for students later in February.

The majority of MSK's ingredients come from plants, seaweed and algaes. Methocel for example is derived from cellulose, which is a plant.

Giving an example of how his company's ingredients can work on a production line he cites the way using a gelling agent such as methocel in meat pies can solidify the gravy inside during the cooking time but when the pie cools down the gravy returns to its liquid state. If it isn't used, the gravy would boil over and there was a chance of ovens catching fire, he said.

Now the company has its first development chef in place, plans are in the pipeline to build a development kitchen to inspire even more creativity. Priest eventually wants to produce a range for gourmet consumers and encourage them to join the ‘MSK Club'. Products he feels would fit the bill are caviar pellets – brightly coloured that would appeal to consumers.