Ice Cream
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166 free Ice Cream trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free ice cream trivia questions with answers. Whether you're team vanilla or team chocolate chip cookie dough, ice cream is the world's favorite way to cool down. From its ancient origins to the billion-dollar industry it is today, how much do you really know about the frozen treat?
30 of 166 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which two flavors topped a 2010s industry survey of America's best-selling ice creams?
Vanilla and chocolate
Vanilla and chocolate led the International Dairy Foods Association's survey of ice cream makers and retailers; the group put vanilla's lead down to how well it goes with other desserts, from sundaes to apple pie.
Q 02Next to ice cream, Italian gelato is generally what?
Leaner, denser
Leaner, denser: artisanal gelato is made with more milk than cream and has less air whipped in than ice cream, so the scoop that tastes richer is usually the one with less fat.
Q 03The words 'sorbet' and 'sherbet' both trace back to an Arabic word meaning what?
Drink
Drink: the Arabic root gave the Middle East a word for sweetened fruit cordials, and 'sherbet' named a cold drink in English long before it meant a frozen dessert.
Q 04What three flavors make up Neapolitan ice cream?
Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry
Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry are frozen side by side in one block of Neapolitan ice cream, which is cut in slices across the stripes so that every serving gets all three flavors.
Q 05What is the main difference between sorbet and ice cream?
It contains no dairy
Sorbet is a frozen dessert made from water, sugar, and flavoring (usually fruit). Unlike ice cream, it contains no dairy products, making it suitable for those who are lactose intolerant or vegan.
Q 06Which jam maker owns Magic Shell, the topping that hardens on contact with cold ice cream?
Smucker's
Smucker's bought Magic Shell in the early 1980s and sells it beside its jams and other ice cream toppings; the syrup sets into a crackable shell seconds after it touches something cold.
Q 07What is a banana split traditionally served in?
A boat-shaped dish
A boat-shaped dish holds the banana, split lengthwise; most historians credit David Strickler, a 23-year-old pharmacy clerk in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in 1904, though Wilmington, Ohio, still celebrates a rival claim.
Q 08At the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, Ernest Hamwi improvised an ice cream container by curling what?
A waffle cookie
Hamwi, a Syrian concessionaire, curled a waffle cookie into a receptacle for the ice cream; the story is much disputed, but he went on to start his own cone-making company.
Q 09The name of the ice cream dessert 'parfait' is the French word for what?
Perfect
Perfect is what parfait means; in France the dessert is a frozen cream-and-egg mixture served in slices, and the tall glass of ice cream layers is the American take on it.
Q 10What French term describes a slice of pie served with a scoop of ice cream?
À la mode
À la mode means 'in the fashion' in French, where it describes clothes or a way of braising beef; only in American English does it promise a scoop of ice cream on your pie.
Q 11Which Japanese treat wraps a ball of ice cream in thin pounded sticky-rice dough?
Mochi ice cream
Mochi ice cream wraps a ball of ice cream in a thin skin of mochi, pounded glutinous rice; Frances Hashimoto of Los Angeles confectioner Mikawaya popularized it in the United States in the 1990s.
Q 12What is kulfi?
A traditional Indian frozen dairy dessert
Kulfi is a traditional Indian frozen dairy dessert made by slowly boiling down sweetened milk; it is not churned as it freezes, so it comes out denser than ice cream and melts more slowly.
Q 13Which US president proclaimed July to be National Ice Cream Month?
Ronald Reagan
Q 21Spumoni, the layered gelato with candied fruit and nuts, was created in which city?
Naples
Naples is usually credited with spumoni, born in the late 19th century when whipped cream was folded into layered gelato; it is often called the ancestor of Neapolitan ice cream.
Q 22What is the key ingredient that distinguishes frozen custard from regular ice cream?
Egg yolks
Egg yolks set frozen custard apart: US rules require at least 1.4% egg yolk solids by weight, and the yolks give it a denser, smoother texture than ordinary ice cream.
Q 23Which ice cream brand was founded in 1907 in the small town of Brenham, Texas?
Blue Bell
Blue Bell began as the Brenham Creamery Company, making butter from farmers' surplus cream in a converted cotton gin; ice cream came in 1911, and the wildflower name in 1930.
Ronald Reagan signed the proclamation in 1984, also naming a Sunday in July as National Ice Cream Day and urging Americans to mark both with 'appropriate ceremonies and activities'.
Q 14What ingredient gives mint chocolate chip ice cream its green color?
Food coloring
The green comes from added food coloring; peppermint or spearmint extract is colorless, which is why many artisan and 'natural' mint chip ice creams are white.
Q 15Which word from the world of budgets also names the air whipped into ice cream?
Overrun
Overrun is the air whipped in during freezing: at 100% overrun the mix has doubled in volume, so half of every scoop is air, and US rules limit it by requiring a gallon to weigh at least 4.5 pounds.
Q 16Which US president's handwritten recipe for vanilla ice cream still survives?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson did not bring ice cream to America, as is often claimed, but he wrote out his own recipe after tasting it in France and helped introduce vanilla ice cream to Americans.
Q 17Why is soft serve softer than hard-packed ice cream?
It is dispensed warmer
It is dispensed warmer: soft serve goes straight from the machine that freezes it into the cone, while hard ice cream is hardened and stored at much lower temperatures before it is scooped.
Q 18Which flavor does South Dakota State University say was invented at its dairy plant in 1979?
Cookies and cream
Cookies and cream is the university's claim, crediting plant manager Shirley Seas and two students in 1979; several ice cream makers tell rival origin stories, and the question has never been settled.
Q 19What does the name Häagen-Dazs actually mean?
Nothing; it's invented
Nothing; it's invented: Reuben Mattus coined the Danish-sounding name as a tribute to Denmark's treatment of its Jews during World War II, though Danish has neither an 'ä' nor a 'zs'.
Q 20Which Ben & Jerry's flavor, its most popular as of 2020, mixes fudge brownies with cookie dough?
Half Baked
Half Baked topped Ben & Jerry's own ranking of fan favorites for 2020; its brownies come from Greyston, a bakery in Yonkers that takes on anyone who signs up, including people just out of prison.
Q 24Under US federal rules, a product must contain at least 10% of what to be labeled ice cream?
Milkfat
Milkfat must make up at least 10% of anything sold as ice cream in the United States; lighter products have to say so, with labels such as 'reduced fat' or 'light'.
Q 25Which fast-food chain's ice cream machines broke down so often that a website launched in 2020 to track them?
McDonald's
McDonald's was the target: a 24-year-old software engineer built McBroken, a live map of the chain's US restaurants showing which soft-serve machines were out of order.
Q 26The Italian dessert affogato is a scoop of gelato topped with a shot of what?
Espresso
Affogato al caffè literally means 'drowned in coffee': a scoop of fiordilatte or vanilla gelato topped with a shot of espresso.
Q 27What is the ice cream truck jingle 'Turkey in the Straw' originally from?
A 19th-century American folk song
A 19th-century American folk song, 'Turkey in the Straw' spread through blackface minstrel shows in the 1830s; that history led one big ice cream brand to commission a replacement jingle from the rapper RZA in 2020.
Q 28Which First Lady served ice cream at her husband's 1813 inaugural ball?
Dolley Madison
Dolley Madison served ice cream at her husband James Madison's second inaugural ball in 1813, when it was still a rare luxury; her fame as a hostess later put her name on a 20th-century ice cream brand.
Q 29Which country is home to dondurma, the stretchy ice cream that vendors pull and toss like taffy?
Turkey
Turkey's dondurma is thickened with salep, a flour ground from orchid tubers, and mastic resin, which make it chewy, slow to melt and stretchy enough for vendors to put on a show.
Q 30Which TV host's Ben & Jerry's flavor pairs vanilla with fudge-covered waffle bits and caramel?
Colbert's Americone Dream
Colbert's Americone Dream arrived in 2007: vanilla with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl; Stephen Colbert gives his proceeds to charity through the Stephen Colbert Americone Dream Fund.