Chocolate ice cream is generally made by
blending cocoa powder, and the eggs, cream, vanilla, and sugar used to make
vanilla ice cream. Sometimes chocolate liquor is used in addition to
cocoa powder or used exclusively to create the chocolate flavor.Cocoa
powder gives chocolate ice cream its brown color, and it is uncommon to
add other colorings.
The Codex Alimentarius, which provides an international set of standards
for food, states that the flavor in chocolate ice cream must come from
nonfat cocoa solids that must comprise at least 2.0-2.5% of the mix
weight. The US Code of Federal Regulations "permits reductions in the
content of milk fat and total milk solids by a factor of 2.5 times the
weight of the cocoa solids", to take into account the use of additional
sweeteners.