February 2013 – FROZBROZ

February 28, 2013

Brown Ale with Bacon Marmalade

Ok, so for evers ago, we talked about making a beer ice cream, and actually, I made a single attempt the week before starting this blog two years ago. At the time, we would have been one of the first to produce such a product, but in the end, it didn’t work out. The flavors weren’t there, the texture was icy, and sadly, our desire to continue the fight was diluted by hundreds of other flavor ideas. This week, the fight is on, and this time, we gonna win this one. Also, we’re going to add bacon. Let’s get started with this weeks flavor: Brown Ale with Bacon Marmalade

Raise your hand if you’ve had this beer? Now, if your hand is down, go get one. This is the Lost Trout Brown Ale from Third Street Brewhouse out of Cold Spring, MN…by far the best brown ale that I have had in a long time. Brown Ales tend to be sweet and syrupy for me, but this one is crisp, clean with a slightly bitter caramel finish. For the ice cream, the brown ale is reduced into a syrup and mixed into our organic cane sugar ice cream base. This ice cream alone is versatile for a number of pairings, but this week, I went back through my notes and found a recipe that was screaming for this one – Bacon Maramalade

This bacon marmalade is rich, sweet and acidic. It’s main components: Lorentz uncured bacon from Canon Falls, MN, bourbon, fennel and coffee.

The bacon in chopped and rendered until crisp. The fennel is diced and simmered in renderings until translucent. The bacon fat is drained, and the bacon, fennel bourbon and coffee go into a sauce pan along with brown sugar, maple syrup and cider vinegar. The mix is simmered down for about an hour until the liquid has reduced to a very light syrupy consistency.

The mix goes into the food processor and is pulsed until a marmalade-esk texture is achieved. Talkin versatile? This bacon marmalade can be spread on toast, your burger, pizza, on top of your 85% cocoa chocolate bar. Seriously. No, seriously. But we decided to layer it into our brown ale ice cream.

Boom! Brown ale ice cream with bacon marmalade. It’s rich, creamy and tangy. The flavors and textures are all there, and now we have conquered our first beer cream. Stay tuned, this could be the start of our next obsession.

You can win one of the only two pints in the world, filled with this fabulous, scratch made craft ice cream in our weekly pint giveaway. Enter your name in the comments section here, or on our facebook page under the posted contest. 2 lucky winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 3/1 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback. Pints must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

February 21, 2013

Blood Orange Quark Ginger Shortbread

Its Blood Orange season which means for a very short time, they can be found in stores. They are a favorite of many when they show up around this time of the year. This is a flavor I’ve made before but have yet to post it on the blog. Now is as good as time as ever, right? The combination of the bright red orange with ice cream is hard to resist.

As you’ve seen us do for many other citrus flavors, the first step to this flavor involves juicing the blood oranges and reducing down with sugar to create a syrup to layer into the cream. Think this Minnesota made Blood Orange syrup might be good on pancakes or waffles, or some other dessert you have in mind? You might be seeing more from us in this department in the coming months.

Next, the ginger shortbread. Shortbread cookies are among my favorite, the richness and crunch is hard to beat. For a little extra kick, these are peppered with diced candied ginger then baked off and broken up in preparation for being mixed into the ice cream.

This was the first flavor we experimented with using Quark cheese, and it turned us on to a fantastic ingredient we’ll continue to use for many other flavors. It first appeared on our blog in the Cranberry Compote Quark + Toasted Walnuts. Its similar to cream cheese in texture, but a bit more tart and gives the ice cream an excellent cream flavor.

The quark is blended with the ice cream base, and the ginger shortbread is mixed into the cream during the churn. At the end, rich swirls of the blood orange syrup are layered in with the ice cream as it is packed into the pint. The end result is a cheesecake like ice cream, swirled with blood orange syrup and full of ginger shortbread crunch.

You can win one of the only two pints in the world, filled with this fabulous, scratch made craft ice cream in our weekly pint giveaway. Enter your name in the comments section here, or on our facebook page under the posted contest. 2 lucky winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 2/22 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback. Pints must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

February 14, 2013

Rose with Cinnamon Honey

Happy Valentines Day!! This week we really wanna say thanks to all who continue to follow us and dig what we’re doing. We love you! Will you be our valentine? Be mine. Hug me. Cutie Pie. Lets Kiss. Be True. Sweetheart. Love Me. Seriously though, love you. And since we love you, and it’s Valentines Day and all, we thought we would give you roses on this special day. Not roses though. Rose ice cream. Rose ice cream with cinnamon honey. Let’s get started…

Rose buddies! It’s not really the season to find fresh rose buds suitable for cooking with, so we’re using dried. Don’t worry sweetie pie, the flavor is all there. For our rose ice cream base, we use plain organic cane sugar, and steep the rose buds in the cream. The buddies get strained out, and the mix is ready for the churn.

Next, we make our cinnamon honey. For this batch we’re using our last jar of local honey from Nordeast Nectars. We heat to thin out so that we can easily incorporate the cinnamon. Done! The cinnamon honey gets layered into the pints during packaging.

Happy Valentines Day! We made you rose ice cream layered with cinnamon honey. The rose flavor is floral and earthy while the cinnamon honey balances the bouquet with a touch of sweetness and spice. For real though, we love you! Hearts, Frozbroz

You can win one of the only two pints in the world, filled with this fabulous, scratch made craft ice cream in our weekly pint giveaway. Enter your name in the comments section here, or on our facebook page under the posted contest. 2 lucky winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 2/15 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback. Pints must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

February 7, 2013

Meyer Lemon Ricotta Black Pepper

Since we’re on the citrus kick, I’ve dug up a flavor that I’ve contemplated for nearly a year. Meyer lemons are one of my favorite citrus fruits and I wanted to make an ice cream that didn’t have swirl or a syrup, but was straight up flavored with the fruit. We’re no stranger to incorporating cheese in our ice creams either, but this marks the first time we’ve used Ricotta. Its sweet mild flavor seemed like a nice way to balance the sweet and sour of the lemon, and black pepper is a way to finish it off with a little bite.

Similar to last week’s flavor Lime with Macadamia and Ginger Caramel, we use zest from the lemon –

we also juiced the lemons and reduced them into a syrup to further intensify the lemon flavor once added to the cream.

Then the cream base was made, using our organic cane sugar base along with this beautiful, tasty ricotta from the Seward Co-op

All ingredients were blended, with fresh ground black pepper added in right before the churn

The end result is a light, yet rich lemon infused ice cream with an added creaminess from the Ricotta and a nice chirp of black pepper at the end

You can win one of the only two pints in the world, filled with this fabulous, scratch made craft ice cream in our weekly pint giveaway. Enter your name in the comments section here, or on our facebook page under the posted contest. 2 lucky winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 2/8 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback. Pints must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!