Dark and Stormy

Our Facebook fan flavor contest from a few weeks back provided a ton of great flavor ideas and we’ll probably add a few more before summer is over.  This week we’re going to go back to the summer cocktail theme using a fan suggestion and visit another great summer drink featuring ginger ale, lime and rum – the Dark and Stormy.  For the ice cream version, we made a ginger brown sugar ice cream with candied lime and dark rum syrup.

 

Dark and Stormy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most labor intensive part of making this flavor is making the candied lime – so we’ll start there.  The lime rind is carefully separated and sliced – then boiled 3 times to remove the bitterness.  Once that is done, the lime “zest” is simmered in a simple sugar syrup until tender, tossed with sugar and laid out on a sheetpan to dry.

 

 

Candied Lime

Candied Lime

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then comes the dark rum syrup.  It starts with brown sugar and water, which is boiled into a syrup.  The dark rum is added at the end once cool to prevent all of the alcohol from burning off.  Rum is a sweet liqour that disappears in more sugar, so we want a little of the alcohol to stay in the syrup and round out the flavor.

 

 

IMG_1669Cinnamon Syrup

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not least, the ice cream base.  To serve as the ginger ale portion of the cocktail, we use brown sugar and fresh grated ginger.  It makes for a nice slightly dark and gingery base to hold up the candied lime and rum syrup.

 

 

brown sugarginger

 

 

 

 

 

 

The candied limes are added in at the end of the churn and the rum syrup is swirled in as the ice cream is packed into it’s container.

 

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The scoop is a light and airy brown sugar ginger ice cream studded with candied limes all embraced by a dark rum syrup swirl.

 

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Dark and Stormy Ice Cream Recipe

(makes approx 1-1/2 quarts)

Ingredients:

For Ice Cream:
2C Heavy Cream
1C Milk (use any fat percentage you prefer – higher lends to a creamier base)
2 Eggs
3/4C Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon of finely grated ginger
1/2 tsp salt

For Syrup:
1C Brown Sugar
1/2C Water
2 Tablespoons of Dark Rum

For Candied Lime:
3 Limes
1C Sugar + Extra for dusting
1C Water

Instructions:

1. Prepare the candied Lime (make 1 day ahead of time): Remove the peels from the limes.  Using a sharp knife, carefully remove any thick white pith from lime peel. Cut peel into thin 2-inch-long strips. Place peel in pot and cover with water. Bring to boil and strain, repeat boiling and straining 3 times to remove bitterness from peel. Once boiling has been completed, bring 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar to boil. When sugar is dissolved, add strained lime peel and reduce to simmer; cook for approximately 30-45 minutes or until lime peel is tender. Once tender, strain lime peel and toss with sugar to coat, then spread out on sheet pan and let dry completely (will go faster in refrigerator – usually takes about 3-4 hours). Once lime peel is dry chop into small 1/4″ sized pieces and chill in refrigerator until you are ready to churn ice cream.

2. Prepare the syrup (make ahead of time and chill): Combine the brown sugar and water in a heavy bottom pot and place on burner over medium/high heat.  Bring to boil and cook until temperature reaches 220 degrees farenheit (you’ll need a candy or high heat digital read thermometer). Watch closely because it can boil over lightning fast. Remove from heat. Let cool to room temperature and then add the rum and stir until incorporated. Chill further in refrigerator until you’re ready to make ice cream. It helps to test some of the syrup in the freezer to make sure it doesn’t get too hard or thick.  If it does – simply add a bit of water or rum and heat until you can incorporate it all (or do it while it is still warm).

3.  Prepare the ice cream: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add grated ginger, brown sugar and salt and whisk again until all are fully incorporated.  Place ice cream mix in heavy pot and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously. Heat ice cream mixture until temperature reaches 165 degrees. Remove from heat.  Cool the ice cream base to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes).   Once cool, place ice cream mix in a container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add in 1/2C candied lime in the last 5 minutes of the churning process. The rum syrup is swirled in to the ice cream as you pack it into the container. Freeze in a tightly covered container for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait.  Then, enjoy!

*Yields approximately 2.5 pints of ice cream.

 

 

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 7/10/15 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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Mojito

Nothing spells summer like sipping on a Mojito in the sun.  For those of you not familiar, a mojito is a rum-based cocktail flavored with fresh mint, lime and mixed with club soda.  It’s a flavor we’ve kicked around for ice cream a number of times, but when we recently solicited our facebook fans for flavor ideas it came roaring back to life.  With that extra encouragement we went back to the drawing board and came up with a version that we’re pretty darn happy with – and hopefully our fans will be as well.

 

MOjito

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
This flavor revolves around the mint, lime and rum of the mojito.  To avoid having a mint ice cream that would overpower the rum and lime flavors, we chose to put the mint into a syrup.

 

 

 

mint

mint syrup

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First the mint is pureed with a bit of water and then brought to a boil with sugar to create a syrup.

 

 

mint syrupmint syrup

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since the mint loses it’s nice green color and a some of the fresh flavor while being cooked into the syrup, more fresh mint is added into it once the syrup has cooled.  In addition, the rum part of the equation comes in here -the rum is also added to the syrup once cool.  We add it to the syrup rather than the ice cream itself because it has a tendency to stand out a bit more in the flavor when concentrated into a syrup vs. diluted into the ice cream base.  The syrup gets swirled into the ice cream at the very end.

 

lime zest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The base of the ice cream holds the lime flavor.  And the best way to naturally impart a fresh lime flavor into the cream is to use the zest of the lime.  The lime zest steeps in the cream during the heating process and creates a nice lime flavor without adding any additional water content (which is ice cream’s #1 enemy).

 

mojito

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The scoop is a summery lime ice cream swirled with a fresh mint and rum syrup.  Happy summer!

 

 

Mojito 

2 Cups Heavy Cream
1 Cup 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
1-3/4 Cup of sugar
1 Cup of fresh mint
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 Tablespoon Rum
1 Tablespoon of Lime Zest

Instructions:

Prepare syrup (should be prepared at least 1 day ahead: Puree 1 Cup of mint with 1/2 Cup of water. Place mint/water puree in pot and add 1 Cup of sugar. Bring mixture to light boil over high heat until it reaches a temp of 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Or if you don’t have a candy thermometer (I do this even with one): boil for approximately 5-7 minutes, remove pot from heat and spoon some of the syrup into a small glass ramekin, plate or bowl. Place the sample in your freezer for around 15 minutes. When at least 15 minutes have passed, and make sure it has cooled to a sticky syrup consistency. If its really thin you will need to boil a bit longer and do the freezer test again. If it’s too thick, you might need to add a tablespoon of water to the pot. Once you have reached that desired syrupy consistency you know you’ve got it where you want it. Once the whole mix is cool (this is key) add another 1/4 cup of finely chopped mint along with the rum and mix well. Then cool it all in a container until you are ready to freeze your ice cream.

2. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully.  Add 3/4 Cup sugar, and lime zest and whisk.  Add cream, milk, salt and and whisk until all are fully combined.

4. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Place ice cream base in a small pot and heat over medium heat, whisking or stirring continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes).

5. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions.  Swirl in the mint rum syrup as you pack the frozen ice cream in a freezer proof container.  Let freeze for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight (if you can wait).  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 6/26/2015 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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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.

Coconut Milk

Pineapple

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Pina Colada syrup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

pina colada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!

 

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Toasted Coconut Cherry Rum

Valentine’s day is on its way and we wanted to create a flavor that fit the bill.  Last year we went the flower route with our Rose w/Cinnamon Honey flavor.  This year however, we wanted something more tropical – something we like to do in the dead of a Minnesota winter.  We chose to go the Toasted Coconut route because we’re a little obsessed with it right now and we wanted to pair it with something red – you know for valentines day. Originally we thought perhaps of doing a passion fruit syrup, but passion fruit is nearly impossible to come by right now, so we opted for Wisconsin Cherries.  Well ok – the juice of Wisconsin Cherries but that’s as close as we could get.  And to add an extra little zing, why not a twist of rum?

Toatsted Coconut

Rum

Cherry Juice

 

 

 

 

 

 

The process for this flavor was pretty straightforward.  The base would be our regular ice cream base steeped with toasted coconut.  The toasted coconut provides a much nicer coconut flavor, with more depth.  The toasted coconut flavor really comes out in the ice cream with this method.

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What brings it to the next level is this tart cherry juice from Door County, WI.  We boiled the juice down to concentrate the cherry flavor and then added sugar and boiled more to create the syrup.  The rum is added in at the end to ensure it doesn’t evaporate off in the cooking process.

Cherry SyrupCherry Syrup

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, the syrup is swirled into the ice cream as it’s packed into the pint.  The result is wonderfully tropical toasted coconut ice cream with notes of summer Wisconsin cherries and a bite of rum.

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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 2/7/14 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!

And if you don’t win, this flavor WILL be available at our pint sale this Saturday, February 8th. Come pick up a pint of this or many others at our Valentines special pint sale.
Click here for details.

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