January 2014 – FROZBROZ

January 27, 2014

Salt Vanilla with Grapefruit Marmalade

I’m sure you’ve all noticed, but if you haven’t, it’s winter. Winter here in Minnesota means that it’s citrus season in parts of the US like Florida, Texas and California. We’ve played around with flavor profiles that include the likes of oranges, lemons, and limes, but grapefruit isn’t one that we’ve messed around with. Grapefruit is probably the least popular of all the citrus fruits, but it packs a bold bittersweet punch. It is that bold flavor punch that we always strive to create in our flavors, which made this one seem like a no brainer. I decided to pair up the grapefruit with another flavor we don’t often use on its own…vanilla. This time, we’re salting it down to produce a sweet/salty/bitter ice cream we like to call Salt Vanilla with Grapefruit Marmalade.

For this flavor we’re using a natural sea salt, providing a mellow salt flavor, which fuses all the flavors in this ice cream together. We’re using two forms of vanilla for this one. First we split open a Madagascar bourbon vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into our base. Second, we use a Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract to bring out a more pronounced vanilla profile. Both are mixed into our standard organic cane sugar base, then cooked, cooled, and ready to churn.

Next the marmalade. There are numerous methods for marmalade making, but I decided to try one that I saw used on a cooking show. I started with two large Ruby Red grapefruits thrown into a large pot of water so they are floating. The water is brought to a boil and the fruit is simmered for a few hours until the skin is tender. The whole fruit is cooled.

Next, slicing and dicing, and into a sauce pan with brown sugar, cane sugar, and lemon juice. This mixture is slowly brought to a boil and simmered down until the grapefruit rinds become translucent and jelly like. And bang…we have grapefruit marmalade. For the ice cream, I decided to give the marmalade a little ride in the blender to break down some of the larger chunkage. The marmalade is layered into our salt vanilla ice base during the packaging process.

Salt vanilla ice cream with a hit of bittersweet grapefruit marmalade. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s winter, but that’s not stopping us from making delicious craft made ice creams.

Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of 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. Two winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 1/31/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

Don’t forget, our next pint sale is coming up Saturday, February 8th. Click here for details.

January 23, 2014

Coconut Cinnamon Sriracha Peanut

If you’re not familiar with Sriracha, you probably should be – over the past decade it has gone from a condiment usually relegated to restaurants of Asian flare, to a hot sauce that is found nearly everywhere. I’ve been wanting to figure out a way to incorporate my favorite hot sauce into ice cream for awhile, and this flavor was literally built around accomplishing this task.

The trick with Sriracha is finding a way to minimize the impact of its garlic component, which has a tendency to take over ice cream and/or linger on the palate. To combat this effect, I chose to use the hot sauce as a means to candy peanuts so as to hopefully provide it with a vehicle to poke through.

The method for candying the peanuts is simple. Brown sugar and sriracha sauce are whisked into an egg white and raw peanuts are tossed in the mix until coated. They are then roasted in the oven at 325 degrees for 20-30 minutes or so. When they come out they are coated in a beautiful spicy sweet candy coating which holds up perfect in the ice cream.

If you’re looking for a easy snack, you could do a lot worse.

For the base, I chose coconut since it pairs so well with Sriracha and peanuts. In this case we created a dairy base steeped with toasted coconut. Apologies to our vegan and dairy free crowd this iteration is not for you. But it could just as easily be made with all coconut milk and no eggs. To round it out and give it a little more oomph, cinnamon was added at the end.

The peanuts were added into the coconut cinnamon base at the end of the churn. The result is a creamy coconut ice cream with a hint of cinnamon, studded with crunchy Sriracha candied peanuts.

Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of 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. Two winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 1/17/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

Don’t forget, our next pint sale is coming up Saturday, February 8th. Click here for details.

January 15, 2014

Caramel with Salt Candied Pretzel and Chocolate Syrup

We may be halfway through the month of January, but this week we’re going back to the holidays. Everyone has their favorite holiday baked goods, and it seems as though every year there are more and more varieties on the cookie plate. This year, my sister-in-law turned me onto mini pretzels topped with melted down rolos. She pressed whole pecans into some of these snackers after the melt down, and others she left plain. However I ate it, I liked it. These flavors are not re-inventing the wheel, but they certainly make for irresistible snacking. And when I say irresistible, what I mean is, uncontrollable. And so, I wanted to deconstruct these little snackers and put them into our ice cream. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Caramel with Salt Candied Pretzel and Chocolate Syrup.

I decided that I wanted to make a caramel ice cream base, which is something that we’ve never executed before. Now seems like the perfect time, and making the caramel base is really no different than our process of making caramel itself. First, sugar and a very small amount of water are brought to a boil. The sugar is boiled until it starts to caramelize and turn a nice deep amber color. At this point, our cream is whisked in, and we add the caramel cream to the remaining portion of our ice cream base, which is heated through; emulating the pasteuriztion process. The result is a golden ice cream base ready for the churn.

Pretzels! Who doesn’t like pretzels? Ok, if you don’t like them, I can guarantee that you’re going to love these pretzels. They are an adaptation of Christina Tossi’s (of Momofuku Milk Bar fame) pretzel crunch. We are essentially making a pie crust or other type crumb to make these pretzels. The pretzels are broken up into small pieces, and baked with sugar, malted milk powder, salt and butter. Look out, cause these alone can make for a hella snackathon. They are tossed into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

And finally, our chocolate syrup. Here we make a simple syrup, by boiling organic cane sugar and water together, and then add our Valrhona cocoa powder. It’s the bomb chocolate syrup, and we layer it into the pints during packaging.

Bang! Caramel with Salt Candied Pretzel and Chocolate Syrup. It’s January, but we’re still serving up some holiday-inspired snackers frozbroz style.

Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of 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. Two winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 1/17/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

Don’t forget, our first pint sale is coming up this Saturday, January 18th. Click here for details.

January 15, 2014October 30, 2023

Citypages

Q&A: FrozBroz Erik Powers and Ben Solberg

January 9, 2014

Garam Masala

Over the past few years we’ve played with many spices, and continue to be fascinated with how they interact with ice cream both as components and sole flavors. It is our belief that Vanilla is the ice cream world’s corner stone for a reason, and there are still many amazing spices that are just waiting for their chance. This week, its the magical spice’s turn, Garam Masala. Garam Masala is really a fantastical mix of many familiar spices, often including a mix of cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, bay leaf, star anise to name a few. While you can buy some great mixes off the shelf, a little elbow grease, and a spice or coffee grinder make this spice mix scream to all new heights. As we’re wont to do, we created our own Garam Masala blend for this flavor.

The spices are toasted in a pan for a bit, then ground in a spice or coffee grinder to bring them all together.

Once ground, the spice blend is added into the ice cream mix and steeped during the cooking process to draw out the flavor.

The result is a delightfully complex, garam masala infused ice cream with notes of cumin, star anise, cardamom and pepper.

Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of 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. Two winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 1/10/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

Don’t forget, our first pint sale is coming up on January 18th. Click here for details.