BIDDEFORD — When most people think of ice cream, they don’t think about stuff like air-holding ability and freezing point depression.

But most people don’t have the passion for making ice cream that Jonathan Denton does.

Denton and his fiancée, Jacqui DeFranca, just opened Sweetcream, an ice cream and coffee shop located next to Portland Pie Co. in the Pepperell Mill Campus. What makes Sweetcream stand out from the plethora of ice cream sellers that dot the Maine coast comes down to one word: homemade.

Actually, hyper-homemade is a more accurate term, if such a term exists. Sweetcream doesn’t just make ice cream by buying ingredients from a store and putting them together. The majority of what goes into its creamy delights are locally sourced from Maine farms, and the bases are made onsite with a pasteurization machine.

You see, Sweetcream is more than just an ice cream shop – it’s a certified dairy and milk processing plant.

“Using a pasteurizer for a base really allows you to make true homemade ice cream,” Denton said. “Most people don’t make the base; they buy it. You know how you buy a cake mix to make a cake? That’s what it’s like to make your own ice cream (using a pre-prepared base).”

Finding out that Denton goes as far as making mathematical spreadsheets to determine the proper ratio of ingredients for each flavor makes more sense when you know about his educational background. A 2003 graduate of Biddeford High School, he holds a bachelor of science degree in atmospheric chemistry and climatology from McGill University in Montreal.

After taking a year off to backpack around Europe, Denton moved to New York City to sublet a friend’s apartment, and ended up bartending at a restaurant. It was there that he met DeFranca, a professional dancer and yoga instructor who was waitressing on the side.

The couple spent a lot of dates at ice cream shops, and Denton, who says he “loves milkshakes more than anything in the world,” came to realize that the shakes he made at home in Brooklyn through trial and error – usually with DeFranca as his taste tester – were often better than what was sold at the shops. So, they reasoned, they could open their own milkshake stand.

They made a few changes to their business plan before Sweetcream came to fruition. First, they moved from Brooklyn to Biddeford so both could be closer to their families. (DeFranca is originally from West Boylston, Massachusetts.) Then they expanded the concept to not just shakes, but ice cream cones and cups, sundaes, hot and cold coffee and more. They were shown the space at Pepperell Mill in February, finished buying equipment in May, and began selling ice cream in July.

Of course, starting your own businesses is both a thrilling and terrifying enterprise.

“It’s been exciting, nerve-wracking, tons of emotions all at once,” DeFranca said. “But at the end of the day, it’s wonderful to make something that’s yours.”

They tried to do as much prep work as possible beforehand. Denton read everything he could find about ice cream and the culinary industry, took a class on starting your own business, and even underwent a weeklong ice cream manufacturing course at Penn State. (The college has offered the course for more than 100 years, and it attracts people from all over the globe. Who knew?)

“I got into the science of food,” Denton said.

And make no mistake – it is a science. It takes 48 hours to make one ice cream base. Every flavor is an original recipe created by Denton, and pains are taken to use as many locally sourced ingredients as possible – milk and cream comes from Harris Farm in Dayton, for example. Instead of sugar, they use maple syrup from Sawyer’s Maple Farm in Jackman. Ice cream is sold in individual servings and by the pint.

So far, the best-selling flavors have been coffee, mint chip, sweet cream (naturally) and peanut butter and jelly – the latter made with bits of Wonder Bread in the base. Anywhere from eight to 12 flavors are on sale at any given time.

But don’t expect to see the same flavors all the time. Creating new recipes is probably the best part for Denton.

“Ice cream is very experimental,” he said, breaking into a grin.

Sweetcream is open seven days a week. Hours are noon to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information, call 520-2386, visit www.sweetcreamdairy.com or go to the business’ Facebook page.