Ginger Brown Butter Vanilla Bean

We haven’t done a vanilla centric flavor in awhile, so I took the opportunity this week to remedy that.  While it’s true my sons are completely spoiled in their access to ice cream, the wide assortment of flavors we make are often complex and a little challenging for them.  I wanted to tailor something more for them, especially with birthdays coming up – we HAD to have some kind of ice cream to eat with the cake.  Hence, we arrived at this week’s flavor – very much a vanilla but tinted with just a twist as we do.

 

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The process for this flavor is relatively simple – it’s all in the base.

 

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First, the ginger is finely grated and added fresh to the cream base, along with fresh vanilla bean.  Vanilla extract works fine in a pinch, but nothing compares to actual vanilla bean flavor.  All of these flavors steep and infuse into the ice cream base during the cooking process – so it is important that they go in beforehand or their flavor will not be as intense.

 

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A little bit of butter is browned in a pan, and whisked in once the ice cream base has reached a temp around 120 degrees Fahrenheit.  If added in while the ice cream base is cold, it coagulates immediately and you get chunks of brown butter which you most likely don’t want.  When added in while warm, it gets whisked into the base and emulsifies to become one.  Harmonious brown butter flavor in an umami concert with ginger and vanilla bean and cream.

 

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The scoop – a beautifully rich, ginger and brown butter tinted vanilla bean ice cream.

 

 

Ginger Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

(makes approx 1-1/2 quarts)

Ingredients:

2C Heavy Cream
1C Milk (use any fat percentage you prefer – higher lends to a creamier base)
2 Eggs
3/4C Sugar
1 Whole Vanilla bean
1Tablespoon of finely grated ginger
2Tablespoons of melted butter (browned)
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions:

Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add grated ginger, vanilla bean (scraped from pod) and sugar to eggs and whisk until all are combined well. Add cream,milk,  salt and whisk again until all are fully incorporated.  Note: You can add in the vanilla bean pod to steep during the cooking process for more vanilla flavor, but make sure to pull it out and discard before freezing the ice cream.  Place ice cream mix in heavy pot and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously.  Once mix reaches 115 degrees Fahrenheit, whisk in the melted browned butter until emulsified into the ice cream base.  Continue to 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.

3.  Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. 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 5/15/15 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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Ginger Snap Ground Cherry

A few weeks back we got a nice delivery of ground cherries from our friends at Bossy Acres. Ground cherries are one of those unique fruits that are around once a year and have a flavor like nothing else. For this very reason, we wanted to treat all of our CSI members to the experience of tasting them in ice cream. For our members, they will be receiving a pint of our Buttermilk Ground Cherry this month as part of their share, but per a request from my wife, I decided to use some of the extra ground cherries to make a new flavor for our weekly give-a-way – Ginger Snap Ground Cherry. Let’s get started…

 

 

Ginger SnapsGinger Snap Croutons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ginger snaps bring back memories of going to my grandmother’s house. She always had a bag in the cupboard and I always sat at the kitchen table eating ginger snaps and milk when I visited…which was often. It’s actually been about that long since I’ve eaten one, so when my wife suggested this flavor, I was happy to purchase that bag of nostalgia. Don’t knock me for buying these pre-made ginger snaps, because they’re exactly what Grams had in her cupboard, and if they were good enough for Grams, then they’re good enough for FrozBroz. The ginger snaps get broken up and tossed into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

Not just any ice cream base though. This is a brown sugar sweetened base with vanilla and touch of plain yogurt, giving it a caramel-esque quality and silky texture. Now for the jam…

 

 

Ground Cherries - Bossy AcresGround CherriesGround Cherry Jam

 

 

 

 

 

This is the real deal…Bossy Acres ground cherries. If you’re not familiar, ground cherries are like a cross between a grape and a tomato. They grow in the same vine-like structure as a tomato plant and develop a similar exterior wrapper as a tomatillo. They’re called ground cherries, because when they are ripe, they fall off the plant to the ground. Their paper wrapper protects the fruit inside. And oh man, the fruit inside is soooooo tasty. But these little guys are a labor of love; not only does it require a lot of time for Bossy Acres to pick pounds and pounds of these things, but it takes us hours and hours to peel and clean pounds and pounds of these things. It’s something you won’t find any other ice cream companies working with. For the ice cream, we simply simmer down the ground cherries with sugar to preserve their flavor. It’s a simple jam that packs a lot of unique flavor. The jam gets layered into the ice cream before packaging.

 

 

Ginger Snap Ground Cherry

 

 

This is it. Not just it. Ginger Snap Ground Cherry! A brown sugar vanilla ice cream layered with ground cherry jam and packed with ginger snap cookie crunch. It’s a request we couldn’t pass up.

Look good? 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 9/26/14 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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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.

 

 

RhubarbRhubarb, Sugar, Lemon Zest, and Lemon JuiceRhubarb Jam

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Pecans, Graham Crackers, Flour, and Brown SugarPecan Crumble mixed with cold butterPecan Crumble

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.

 

 

Vanilla Rhubarb with Pecan Crumble

 

 

 

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!

 

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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.

 

 

Natural Sea SaltVanilla beanVanilla Extract

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Ruby Red Grapefruit - TexasWhole grapefruit boiled in Water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Whole cooked grapefruit chopped Grapefruit, sugars and lemon juice simmeringGrapefruit Marmalade

 

 

 

 

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 with Grapefruit Marmalade

 

 

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.

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