Why does my ice cream tastes so eggy?

I received a comment recently about why homemade ice cream has a strong taste of eggs and whether using pasteurised egg yolks will help solve it.

Well, there are two parts to this question so let's take it one at a time.

1. Why does homemade ice cream have a strong egg taste?
- It is possible that too much egg yolks have been used to make one portion of ice cream. As a general rule of thumb, try to make only about 130ml to 150ml of ice cream from one medium-sized egg yolk.

Use about:
75ml cream
75ml milk
1 medium-sized egg yolk
20g of sugar

This proportion of ingredients will help create a decent tasting custard base.

- You might have added too little sugar. As a result, egg yolks tend to overcook more easily. This is because making an egg-based custard can be quite tough when there is no sugar to prevent the custard from overcooking. Sugar DOES help prevent egg yolks from scrambling.

- Another scenario could be that you might simply have overcooked the custard. In other words, you are cooking it for too long. Whenever the consistency of the custard has become too solid and not runny enough, the egg taste tends to become more pronounced.

2. So will using pasteurised egg yolks help?
- From my experience with pasteurised egg yolks, I think the answer might be "yes". For whatever reason that I'm not too sure of, pasteurised egg yolks do impart a more subtle taste to the overall custard. I think it might have to do with the fact that pasteurised egg yolks have already been heat treated and that causes its taste to change.

Regardless, my advice for preventing your custard from being too eggy is to learn how to cook a custard properly. Most importantly, DO NOT undercook your custard, but also know to what extent a custard is considered properly done.