People have been enjoying ice cream treats for a long time now, but ice creams became common after the mass adoption of refrigeration as a means of food preservation. Ice cream is made by mixing components like sugar, milk, cream, and other frozen ingredients.
It’s true that some ice cream brands, for example, Haagen Dazs, contain eggs. Other ice cream flavors do not have eggs, so if you need one with eggs, pay attention to the product ingredients. You can also make your own tasty homemade ice cream with or without eggs.
Eggs are a key ingredient in making ice cream since they add color and flavor, create a smooth texture and prevent the crystallization of ice. However, while using eggs to prepare ice cream, there are some essential tips and steps to be followed so that you’re assured it’s safe to eat
Are There Eggs In Ice Cream?
Eggs, specifically their yolks, have benefits while added to homemade ice cream. You can prepare delicious ice cream even without including eggs in your recipe, but when you include eggs, you’ll have a lot more to enjoy.
Here’s why you’ll never want to take an ice cream without eggs in it:
Besides water, egg yolks usually contain a huge percentage of protein and fat. Fat makes your ice cream creamy and soft since it freezes differently and is not as hard as water.
Better still, egg yolks contain emulsifiers, like lecithin, which hold water and fat together to form a creamy emulsion.
One more thing! Egg yolks boost the stability of ice cream; this reduces its tendency to melt before you can pick it from your freezer, place it in a cone and start enjoying it. Eggs also prolong the shelf life of your ice cream when it’s in your freezer because their yolks prevent the thaw-refreeze cycle, which destroys the texture of ice cream.
It’s that clear eggs have a lot to add to ice cream. But when you are preparing ice cream, and you’d like to add eggs, you may have one question in mind: how many eggs should I add to ice cream?
Depending on the recipe you’ll be using, some may need two eggs for every quart of finished ice cream, while others may call for as many as ten.
Do You Need to Use Eggs When Making Ice Cream?
Absolutely not. Whether you add eggs to your ice cream or make it with none often comes down to personal preference. Some great ice cream recipes don’t use ice yolks.
However, even without the eggs, they allow you to add other flavors without interfering with the final taste of your ice cream.
But unless you’re allergic to eggs, you wouldn’t want to miss the massive benefits of ice cream with some eggs. Eggs play the role of a stabilizer, emulsifier, and flavor when added to ice cream.
If you use eggs to make ice cream and want other ingredients to shine through, you must add only a few eggs. And, if you want your ice cream to last longer in the freezer, then add up to eight eggs.
However, you can always experiment at home to see what will work best for you.
Popular Ice Cream Brands That Use Eggs
Here’s a list of ice cream products that have eggs:
- Carvel – Vanilla.
- Haagen-Dazs – Many of the flavors contain eggs.
- Breyers – Strawberry cheesecake, birthday blast, french vanilla.
- Dreyer’s – French vanilla.
- Cold Stone Creamery – Key lime, french vanilla, salted chocolate caramel, red velvet cake, fudge brownie batter, lemon custard.
Popular Ice Cream Brands That Don’t Use Eggs
Below you’ll find out some of the best dairy-free and vegan ice creams that you can enjoy together with your loved ones.
Let’s cut to the chase:
1. Ben and Jerry’s
The following are Ben and Jerry’s egg-free ice cream options. They’re certified as vegan, so there aren’t any animal products such as eggs and dairy in them.
- Chocolate fudge brownie
- Caramel almond brittle
- Coffee caramel fudge
- Cherry Garcia
- Pb and cookies
- Chunky monkey
- Coconut seven layer bar
2. Halo Top
Here are the Halo Top Vegan ice creams:
- Dairy-free chocolate
- Dairy-free candy bar
- Dairy-free sea salt caramel
- Dairy-free chocolate chip cookie dough
3. Häagen-Dazs
If you would like Häagen-Dazs vegan ice cream, here are the choices you have:
- Non-dairy chocolate salted fudge
- Non-dairy coconut caramel
- Non-dairy chocolate fudge bar
- Non-dairy coconut caramel dark chocolate bar
4. Breyers
Here are all Breyers egg-free and vegan ice cream choices:
- Non-dairy oreo cookie and cream
- Non-dairy vanilla peanut butter
5. Coconut Bliss
The following are the Coconut Bliss vegan ice creams, also soy-free.
- Chocolate chip cookie
- Vanilla island
- Cinema chocolate fusion
- Dark chocolate
- Salted caramel and chocolate
- Naked coconut
- Chocolate peanut butter
- Mocha mama crunch
- Chocolate walnut brownie
- Mint galactica
- Cherry amaretto
- Chocolate hazelnut fudge
- Ginger cookie caramel
- Summer berry swirl
6. So Delicious
The following are the So Delicious vegan ice cream varieties:
- Very vanilla
- Creamy cashew
- Cappuccino
- Salted caramel crystal
- Dark chocolate truffle
- Chocolate peanut butter swirl
- Snickerdoodle
- Mint chip
- Vanilla bean
- No sugar added butter pecan
- Mocha almond fudge
- No sugar added chocolate
- No sugar added vanilla bean
- No sugar added mint chip
- Cookie dough gluten-free
- Oregon mixed berry
- Chocolate velvet
- Peanut butter zig zag
- Chocolate
- Coconut
- Creamy chocolate
7. Tofutti
Here are the Tofutti vegan ice cream varieties:
- Butter pecan
- Vanilla fudge
- Vanilla almond bark
- Wild berry supreme
- Chocolate
- Vanilla
8. Talenti
Here are the Talenti vegan ice cream varieties:
- Strawberry hibiscus sorbetto
- Roman raspberry sorbetto
- Alphonso mango sorbetto
- Coconut chocolate cookie
9. Double Rainbow
The following are all the Double Rainbow vegan ice cream varieties:
- Mint chocolate chip soy cream
- Very cherry chip soy cream
- Coconut sorbet
- Mango tangerine sorbet
- Lemon sorbet
10. Trader Joe’s
Here are Trader Joe’s vegan ice cream varieties:
- Frozen coconut dessert with strawberry
- Frozen coconut dessert with chocolate
11. NadaMoo!
Here are all the NadaMoo milk-free ice cream varieties:
- Rockiest road
- Chocolate peanut butter
- Himalayan salted caramel
- Birthday cake cookie dough
- That snickerdoodle dough
- Cookies and cream
- Chorale cherry fudge brownie
- Gotta do chocolate
- Mmm male pecan
- Java crunch
- Creamy coconut
12. Van Leeuwen
- Vegan salted caramel
- Vegan chocolate
- Vegan honeycomb
- Vegan sicilian pistachio
- Vegan matcha tea
- Vegan caramelized banana nut
- Vegan choc chip cookie dough
- Vegan peanut butter choc chip
- Vegan mint chip
If you want to add eggs to your ice cream, there are a few guidelines for cooking safely as well as handling your egg base properly, recommended by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA advises you to begin with a cooked egg base for your ice cream. Here’s what you need to do to prepare a cooked egg base:
- Mix eggs and milk as required in the recipe.
- Cook the mixture until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F, and stir it constantly during this stage.
- After the cooking, hold on for some time before adding other ingredients or freezing the mixture.
Is Ice Cream Good?
With the various diet and nutrition concerns arising every day, you might be wondering whether ice cream is good or dangerous for your health.
The major component in ice cream is milk, and as you know, milk contains high amounts of protein. You’d be right to say there’s a higher amount of milk protein in a proper dairy ice cream than in the same amount of milk. The milk in ice cream also contains vitamins like phosphorus and calcium that are essential for the body.
Another great aspect of ice cream is that children and sick people can take it with ease. Ice cream may give you a soothing feeling if you’re suffering from a throat infection.
Most ice cream brands put a lot of sugar in their product to enhance the flavor, though. So, eating a balanced diet and only consuming ice cream every now and then is most likely the smartest way to approach this.