Irish Whiskey Caramel

Next week is St. Patrick’s Day, so in usual fashion, we thought we would make a celebratory ice cream flavor. We make a lot of caramel’s for swirling into our ice creams. A good amount of those caramels have booze in them. And of those boozy caramels, the majority have Irish whiskey in them; it’s a favorite. One thing that we don’t make a lot of is caramel ice cream though. So this week, that’s just what we’re going to do. In celebration of the upcoming holiday, we’re going to spike it with one of our favorites, 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey. This week’s flavor – Irish Whiskey Caramel

 

 

Boiling SugarSugar CaramelizingCaramelized Sugar

 

 

 

 

To start our ice cream, we are going to caramelize sugar (just as if we were going to make a caramel) to swirl into the ice cream. A small amount of water is added to the sugar and it’s brought to a boil. During the boiling process, the sugar begins to caramelize. When the sugar becomes a deep amber color, we add the cream.

 


Irish Whiskey Caramel base2 Gingers Irish WhiskeyCaramel

 

 

 

After the cream, we add our milk, eggs, salt, and pasteurize the entire thing. The caramel ice cream base is cooled and a wee bit of whiskey is added; not to much, as too much alcohol will keep the ice cream from freezing properly. At this point, the ice cream is ready to churn, but first we are going to make a whiskey caramel to incorporate into the ice cream just before packaging. Because the caramel is so concentrated with sugar, we will be able to incorporate enough whiskey to give this flavor the boozy kick it needs. The caramel is made in the same style as our caramel ice cream, but instead of adding milk and eggs after the cream, we just add salt. Once cooled, whiskey is added. The caramel is swirled into the ice cream just before packaging.

 

 

Irish Whiskey Caramel

 

 

A rich bite of caramel ice cream infused with 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey. Come celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with us!

 

 

 

 

 

Irish Whiskey Caramel

ice cream:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar, white granulated
2 Tablespoons water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey

caramel:
1 cup sugar, white granulated
2 Tablespoons water
3/4-1 cup heavy cream
2-3 Tablespoons 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey

Instructions:

1. Prepare the ice cream base: In a heavy bottomed pan, with sides at least 4 inches high, add sugar and water and bring to a boil. As soon as the sugar turns an amber color, remove from heat immediately. Add heavy cream and whisk vigorously until incorporated. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, crack eggs into bowl and whisk fully. Add milk and salt, and whisk again until all are fully incorporated. Now, start whisking the caramel that you set aside, and slowly add the egg/milk mixture to the caramel as you whisk vigorously. Once incorporated, heat over medium heat, whisking or stirring continuously until temperature reaches 165 degrees. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Stir in teaspoon of whiskey, place in a container, and cover and chill in refrigerator overnight.

3. Prepare the caramel: In a heavy bottomed pan, with sides at least 4 inches high, add sugar and water and bring to boil. Do NOT STIR at this point or the caramel will become grainy.  As soon as the sugar turns an amber color, remove from heat immediately. Add heavy cream and whisk vigorously until incorporated. Stir in sea salt and cool. Once cool, stir in whiskey. Reserve for ice cream.

4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Empty ice cream into an air tight container and pour some of the caramel over the top. Lightly stir the caramel into the ice cream. You can eat immediately as soft serve, but we would recommend freezing in a tightly covered container for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait.  The flavors will continue to develop and change over the next few days.  Enjoy!

*Yields approximately 2.5 pints

 

If you’d rather not make it, 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 3/13/15 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally in Minneapolis. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

 

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Spicy Cinnamon Chocolate Caramel Pecan

Love is in the air, and with Valentines Day just a few days away, we wanted to hit y’all with something decadent, and spice it up a little too, for your hot lovin. This one should be pretty easy to wrap your heads around. It has all those things that make you see hearts and stars when you eat it. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Spicy Cinnamon Chocolate Caramel Pecan.

 

 

Cocoa Powder, Cinnamon, Cayenne PepperChocolate, Cinnamon, Cayenne ice cream base

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the ice cream base, we’re using three components: Valrhona cocoa powder, Penzy’s cinnamon(China), and Penzy’s cayenne pepper. Like your love, flavor intensity is high here. The three components are whisked into our sweet cream base made with organic cane sugar. The base is pasteurized, cooled, and is ready for the churn.

 

 

Sugar caramelizingCaramel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, the caramel. Salty caramel. For your loving taste buds. First, sugar is brought to a boil until it’s caramelized and becomes a beautiful amber color, at which point we add our cream. The caramel is then finished with sea salt. It’s simple, and friggin’ delicious. The caramel gets layered into the ice cream before packaging.

 

 

Organic PecansPecans, toasted, salted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finish off this lovers’ delight with some toasted salty pecans. Seriously though, simplicity can sometimes be bliss. The pecans take a little ride into the oven, toast at a low temperature, and are finished with salt when they come out. They get tossed into the ice cream whole at the end of the churn.

 

 

Spicy Cinnamon Chocolate Caramel Pecan

 

 

Lovers unite! Decadent spicy chocolate cinnamon ice cream layered with salted caramel and pecans. Happy Valentines Day!

 

 

 

 

Spicy Cinnamon Chocolate Caramel Pecan:

Ingredients:

Ice Cream:
2 Cups of Heavy Cream
1 Cup of Milk (choose your percentage based on how fatty/creamy you’d like your ice cream to be – the higher percentage the creamier the ice cream)
2 large eggs
3/4 Cup sugar
1/3 cup Cocoa Powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Caramel:
1 Cup sugar
1 Tablespoon water
1 Cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Pecans:
3/4 Cup Pecans, halved
1 teaspoon Butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

 

Instructions:

1. Prepare the base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully.  Add sugar and whisk more until cream, sugar and eggs are combined.  Add cream, milk, cocoa powder, cinnamon, cayenne and salt, and whisk again until all are fully incorporated. The cocoa powder may not fully incorporate until the base is cooked.

2. Place ice cream base in a pot and heat over medium heat, whisking or stirring continuously. Heat until temperature reaches 165 degrees. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes) and then place in a container, cover and chill in refrigerator overnight.

3. Prepare the caramel: In a heavy bottomed pan, with sides at least 4 inches high, add sugar and water and bring to boil. Do NOT STIR at this point or the caramel will become grainy.  As soon as the sugar starts to turn an amber color, remove from heat immediately. Add heavy cream and whisk vigorously until incorporated. Stir in sea salt and cool.

4. Prepare the pecans: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place pecans on a sheet pan and bake for 5 minutes. Toss with melted butter and salt. Bake for another 10 minutes. Cool pecans.

5. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add pecans in last 5 muntes of the churn. Empty ice cream into an air tight container and pour some of the caramel over the top. Lightly stir the caramel into the ice cream. You can eat immediately as soft serve, but we would recommend freezing in a tightly covered container for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait.  The flavors will continue to develop and change over the next few days.  Enjoy!

*Yields approximately 2.5 pints

 

If you’d rather not make it, 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 2/13/15 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally in Minneapolis. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

 

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Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel

Finally, the time is here. What time? Mushroom time!! What we’ve been waiting for, I really don’t know, because my mind is completely blown. We’ve contemplated mushrooms in ice cream before…of course we have, but even after all of the crazy shit that we’ve put into our ice cream, mushrooms still didn’t seem like the best idea. And then a few years ago I was chatting with chef Thomas Boemer, of Corner Table, and he suggested using candy cap mushrooms. And then all of this time passed, and for what? Well, we’ve put out a lot of good flavors since then, but this candy cap thing…this should have happened sooner. And since we’re giving thanks next week, we thought we’d make this one a little more festive. You know, with pumpkin. Besides, after just smelling the candy caps, pumpkin is surely going to be a winning combo. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel.

 

 

Candy Cap Mushrooms

Candy Cap Mushroom Steep

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are dried candy cap mushrooms. Right out of the gate they smell like earthy maple syrup. I’m already freaking out with excitement. For the ice cream, we grind the dried mushrooms and mix it into our sweet cream base. The base is cooked, aka pasteurized, steeped, cooled, and then the mushrooms are strained out with a fine mesh strainer. During the steeping process, the sweet earthy aromas of the candy caps are flying out of the pot. Seriously amazing! The base is given a generous salting and is ready for the churn.

 

 

PumpkinRoasted PumpkinCaramel Pumpkin Caramel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, the pumpkin caramel. Like everything we do, it’s done from scratch. We start with a whole pie pumpkin, clean it, and roast it. The roasted pumpkin mash is then incorporated with the cream we will use for our caramel. For the caramel, first, we caramelize the sugar. Once our sugar has turned a deep amber color and begins smoking, we add our pumpkin cream. Our pumpkin caramel is finished with sea salt, is cooled, and is ready to be layered into our pints.

 

 

Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel

 

 

 

Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel. Finally, the time is here. And, to one of many things we’ll be giving thanks to next week, thanks chef Thomas for the hot tip.

 

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 11/21/14 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!

 

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Caramel Apple w/ Crushed Peanut

It’s fall. Its apple season.  And I’m stuck in the Apple rut. Really not a bad rut to be stuck in if you ask me. There are so many apple varieties to play around with, there are are tons of flavor possibilities depending on the variety you choose.  You can get tart, sweet, crunchy or tender, or a mixed bag.  Recently we’ve used Zestar apples, and the latest pickup is an old standby in the apple world- Cortland.   I chose to use them this week for a play on my favorite caramel apple – the one coated in crushed peanuts.

 

IMG_2273

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This flavor doubles up on both the caramel and the apple components.  For the ice cream, we made a caramel base, by cooking a simple caramel with sugar and using that as our sweetener.  Makes for a great, caramel flavored cream.  In addition, some of the caramel is reserved to swirl into the ice cream at the end.

 

zinfandel caramel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the apples, we used a combination of roasted apples, as well as a layer of apple jam as a swirl in with the extra caramel..

 

Roasted Apples

Apple Jam

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end, we added crushed salted peanuts, for a good crunch.

IMG_2279

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The scoop is a rich caramel ice cream filled with tart roasted apples decorated with an apple jam and caramel swirl and  finished with crunchy crushed peanuts.

 

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 10/3/14 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!

 

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Tamarind w/Salted Coconut Caramel

Tamarind is one of those sleeper ingredients and it is utilized as an ingredient in more things than you might think – from Worcestershire sauce to pickles to candy and desserts . Its got a sour, almost dull citrus flavor that isn’t all that appealing on its own – but when sweetened with sugar it comes to life.  I’ve been passing by a basket of the pods in the grocery store for a few months now and finally got around to snatching some up and making ice cream with them.  For this flavor I chose to pair the slightly sour and tropical tamarind with a coconut caramel.

tamarind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tamarind is not the easiest thing to work with.  These pods have a hard shell that must be cracked off, and found inside is the pulp which surrounds seed pods.  To get the flavor into cream, I made a syrup and steeped tamarind directly into the ice cream base as well.

tamarindtamarind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the base steeped with tamarind pods, we went to work on the coconut caramel.  The first step was to toast coconut, which makes them more flavorful and heats the coconut oils for a more powerful steep.  The toasted coconut is then steeped in cream, which will is then used to cool the caramel and make it into the sauce.

coconut creamcoconut caramelcoconut caramelcoconut caramelcoconut caramel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sea salt is added once the caramel has formed up, which brings out the coconut flavor even more.

coconut caramel swirl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the tamarind ice cream has churned, we swirl the coconut caramel in and pack it into the pint.

IMG_0973

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that brings us to the scoop – a delightfully sour and rich tamarind ice cream, decorated with ribbons of salty toasted coconut steeped caramel.

 

Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of this fantastic, 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. Winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 5/16/14 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!

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