What Are Ice Cream Sprinkles Actually Made Of?

Few things elicit as much childlike joy as watching sprinkles get drizzled all over your ice cream to dot the surface with vibrant colors and a texture that can only be described as a delightful mess. Sprinkles make all sorts of treats better, from eye-popping birthday cakes to fairy bread, but there's just something about seeing them on a scoop of vanilla that makes your day that much brighter. While they're clearly made of dreams and happiness, you might also be wondering what sorts of ingredients bring their magic into that bottle of candy confetti.

Ice cream sprinkles are typically made of five types of ingredients, some of which are optional: Sweetener, thickener, shortening, food-safe coloring, and waxes or glazes. The chocolate ones might have an extra ingredient, depending on where they're made — some of them contain actual chocolate while others don't. All these ingredients are combined together to make a dough, which is then pushed through extruders to form noodle-like strands. The strands are then broken up via a tumbler until they reach the size and shape we all grew up with. The end result of all this is a sweet, scatter-friendly confectionery that adds crunch and color to ice cream. If you want the crunch without adding as much sugar, try topping your ice cream with potato chips to get that sweet-salty contrast instead.

Sweetener is a given among ice cream sprinkles' ingredients; they don't really count as sprinkles if they aren't sweet. While most recipes use powdered sugar, they can also be made with alternative sweeteners, such as stevia, for people who are trying to cut down on sugar. The thickener, most often cornstarch, helps bind all the ingredients into a soft dough for proper shaping. Shortening is added to the mix to improve the texture by preventing gluten formation; gluten would make the sprinkles softer instead of giving them that satisfying crunch.

The coloring is what makes ice cream sprinkles so fun to begin with, turning the confection into rainbow-colored ticker tape. In most cases, these are food-safe artificial colorings, but there can be a few exceptions. Artificial coloring is one of several ingredients Trader Joe's refuses to use, for example, so its sprinkles are made with fruit and vegetable juices instead. It's not the only brand that does this, so you've got a few options if certain artificial colorings concern you. Finally, the waxes and glazes are there to enhance both the look and feel of the final product. These ingredients give the sprinkles a glossy finish, which makes their colors pop even more. In the case of waxes, such as carnauba wax, they can also help the sprinkles keep their shape and color by sealing out any external moisture.