Yes, really!
The whole idea of our weekly flavor was born from a challenge to ourselves, to concept and create on a regular basis, over a long term. This is how we keep our minds fresh, fuel our curiosity, make our breakthroughs and hone our skills. It also meant we would ultimately begin to challenge our own paletes, as well as our followers’ in the process. And because we’re willing to walk out on a limb here and there, we get a lot of funny suggestions for flavors. Sometimes we actually entertain them. Sometimes we don’t. In this case…
This flavor wasn’t created as a gimmick or as a joke, in fact, it was created out of pure desire to see if we could make something this far out, actually taste good. We realize that the public’s taste for Cheeseburger ice cream might be nil, but much of the point of these weekly releases are to give you an idea of our thought process when we concept, and ultimately create a flavor. Once in awhile our ideas fall flat, and those get left on the kitchen floor, never to be posted here or created at all for that matter. This one, in our opinion, did not.
It all started with a discussion on the consumption of shakes and malts while enjoying a burger and fries. Many of you willingly slurp down ice cream as a means to wash down a cheeseburger, even dipping fries in it. In some ways, the meal and the dessert are synonymous. So why wouldn’t this flavor work? We had to try.
The concept was narrowed down to a few important factors.
1. No physical meat in the final product
2. Somehow make the ice cream taste reminiscent of a grilled cheeseburger, while still allowing ice cream to be, well, ice cream
We agreed that steeping a burger would be the approach to get the flavorful fat and flavor to soak into the cream- the beef, the smoke, the char, and the cheese.
So, we had some cheeseburgers.
Obviously we start with quality ground beef, and Grass Run Farms is a good one. The burgers went on a hot charcoal grill and were topped with Wisconsin Cheddar. We ate some of the cheeseburgers. Then we took the two left over and kept them to steep in the ice cream base.
Being Wisconsin boys, we knew there had to be more cheese, so we tailored our ice cream base to accept more of this fine cheddar along with the grilled grass fed patties.
Don’t worry, we didn’t forget the bun. For this, we took our favorite New French Brioche Buns and baked them off into croutons with some help from our friends butter and salt. They went in at the end of the churn.
And here it is. A creamy, dense cheddar cheese ice cream steeped with charcoal grilled, grass fed beef patties and specked with brioche bun croutons. A sweet ice cream that ever so subtly reminds you of a cheeseburger.
Of course, you want to know – what did we think? It IS good. Honestly it wouldn’t be my first choice, and isn’t for eating in mass quantities – but its a blast to try and experience the brain tease.
Want to try it? You can win one of the only two pints in the world, filled with 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. 2 lucky winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 7/25/13 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback. Pints must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!
