“Best Friends Cash in on Craft Ice Cream Idea”
Pina Colada
This is one we’ve been wanting to do for a long time and we’re holding on for the right time to release it. The time is now. We’re in peak summer, the sun is high in the sky and an ice cold Pina Colada is hard to beat. Shall we? This one is simplistic but rewarding.
This recipe is made up of two main components: coconut milk and pineapple. Since the coconut milk serves as the ice cream “base” we went to work making a pineapple syrup that would serve simultaneously as the sweetener and the flavoring of the ice cream.
The other half of the syrup is reserved and combined with a splash of rum to be swirled into the ice cream after the churn.
That’s it! A light, refreshing Pina Colada ice cream swirled with pineapple rum syrup. Vegan and dairy free, but you’d never know the wiser. And I wouldn’t be mad if you threw this in a blender with some more rum and made yourself one fantastic shake.
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 6/27/14 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!
Yogurt Peony
Spring is drawing to a close, but our celebration continues as we try to utilize all that is available to us here in Minnesota to create new flavors on a weekly basis. This week we’re celebrating a flower that is probably recognizable to everyone that lives in Minnesota. It’s the peony! They are at the end of their bloom right now, and not only are they gorgeous, they’re extremely fragrant. We are going to try to extract the peony fragrance and put it in our ice cream, along with another little buddy, Greek yogurt, to enhance the experience. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Yogurt Peony.
To start with, I wanted to create an added richness to the texture of this week’s flavor, but I also wanted to see how the sour attributes of a cultured yogurt would pair with the floral tones of the peony. To do this, I added Greek yogurt to our organic cane sugar ice cream base. Here we have a peony in full bloom with a bud in the upper left that is about to bloom. Not to gross anyone out, but peonies are extremely sweet smelling, and for that very reason ants cover their dense flower buds, eat the nectar that they produce, and this allows the peony to open up and bloom.Don’t worry, there are no ants in the ice cream. I repeat, there are no ants in the ice cream.
Next, we want to try to extract as much of that sweet peony fragrance into our cream. The flower petals are removed, soaked in water, washed again, and spun dry in a salad spinner. We add the petals to our yogurt base, cook and steep, in hopes that we will achieve full floral flavor. The petals are strained out; the base is cooled. Ice cream goes through many changes in flavor over the course of its raw existence to being made and sitting in the freezer for a week or two. After cooking, steeping and cooling, the floral tones were barely hitting my palate on the back end of the finish.
Right after the ice cream was churned I got a nice yogurt flavor with a distinct floral finish that tasted just as the peony smells. After packaging and sitting in the freezer for a few days, the floral tones have again diminished. But, that is not the end…ice cream is a peculiar thing – it’s flavor will continue to change and develop over time. It is now up to fate to see where this one ends up.
Yogurt Peony – A rich taste of Spring and Summer. Want to know how this week’s flavor has aged?… 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 6/20/14 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!
Cilantro Lychee Cashew
This flavor is a perfect example of how fate leads us to an end we hadn’t planned on or even thought about when we started. Originally this was going to be a simple Lychee ice cream. When one finds fresh Lychees in Minnesota, one is compelled to buy them immediately. It all seemed serendipitous.
One problem: by the time I reduced the water filled lychees down into a syrup to flavor the ice cream, I just didn’t have enough to make the flavor strong enough.
So…time for a left turn. I had fresh cilantro and it seemed like a nice pair for the lychee syrup. Adding a nice salty crunch to the mix sounded nice, and I also happened to have cashews on hand. So maybe we call this a pantry flavor? Or maybe I should stop talking and get on with it..
We’ve wanted to use cilantro for awhile – though it’s a divisive flavor. I happen to be in the camp that loves it. The other camp (otherwise known as the “vile weed” camp), only taste it as a soapy, bitter nastiness. So apologies to you folks, and follow me cilantro lovers! The cilantro was steeped in the cream to scent the flavor without making it super pungent. I of course would like more. Maybe next time.
The cashews were tossed in butter and salt, and roasted in the oven until golden and crunchy.
And that brings us to the scoop – a cilantro scented ice cream swirled with lychee syrup and studded with crunchy roasted cashews.
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 6/13/14 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!
Vanilla Rhubarb with Pecan Crumble
Naturally, we’re continuing down spring’s path of locally grown produce. And for those of you who visited our pint sale last weekend, you may be thinking that we’re walking backwards down that path, because this week’s flavor was actually for sale last week. Fortunately, for two lucky peeps, there are a few pints left. This week we’re featuring one of spring’s first harvests, rhubarb, with this week’s flavor, Vanilla Rhubarb with Pecan Crumble.
As in year’s past, the rhubarb that we use in our ice cream is actually an heirloom variety that was passed down to me from my father-in-law. My father-in-law got his split from his parents’ old farm near Milwaukee, Wisconsin years ago. You might say, rhubarb is rhubarb, but in my opinion, it tastes better knowing where it came from. To make our vanilla rhubarb base, we first add a little Madagascar vanilla to our standard cane sugar base. We then make a rhubarb jam, first by chopping up our rhubarb, and then cooking it down in a pot with lemon juice, lemon zest and cane sugar. The fibers of the rhubarb break down and form a beautiful jam, which we swirl into our vanilla base before packaging.
We decided we wanted a little crunch time in this one, and pecans and graham crackers came to mind, so we decide to make a shortbread style crust. The pecans and graham crackers get pulsed in the food processor with flour, brown sugar and salt. The dough is pressed out on a sheet pan and baked until crusty. The crust chunkers are broken up and crumbled into the ice cream at the end of the churn.
It’s an irresistibly smooth vanilla ice cream swirled with Minnesota grown rhubarb jam, all studded with crunchy crumbles of pecan graham cracker crust. It’s the next stop on spring’s path.
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 6/6/14 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!