October 2014 – FROZBROZ

October 30, 2014

Cascade Hops w/Barley Malt Swirl

We’ve often talked about what we do with ice cream to be similar to craft beer. Aside from being passionate fans of craft beer ourselves, there are a lot of parallels between the two. Anyway, its probably a conversation better had over a beer, but needless to say brew-making ingredients have often intrigued us and our fondness for craft beer has led us to exploring the possibilities of some of these in ice cream. Malt, of course has had it’s place for a long time.

This flavor however, marks one of our first full forays into the category and I’m sure we’ll have more to come.

For this flavor I chose the well known Cascade hops as the main flavor component. I was a little concerned that a fresh hop would be too bitter so we went with a steep of dry hops instead. It would be interesting to see the difference between the two but we’ll leave that mystery for future endeavors.

The dried cascade hops are reconstituted in our sweet cream base, and steeped in it during the heating/cooking process. The flavor they impart is very recognizable – perhaps even amplified by the cream. Very fruity and floral, with a bitter finish. Such an interesting little profile for an ice cream flavor especially when balanced by the sugar and fat.

To help balance out the bitter finish of the hop, I wanted to add another sweetness factor. Though barley malt syrup is usually used for subtle flavoring, it’s pretty darn tasty and very sweet – and is the perfect consistency for a swirl in. So we swirled in the barley malt syrup at the end of the churn and it really rounds out the beer flavor.

The scoop is a bright and fruity, yet slightly bitter cascade hops infused ice cream, tinted with malty sweetness from the barley malt syrup. Goes great with a beer! I enjoyed it with a glass of Milwaukee Brewing’s Black Iron Ale.

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 10/31/14 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!

October 22, 2014

Red Wine with Poached Pears

In the fall, as the evening temperatures start getting colder and colder, I find myself craving a glass of red wine verses a frosty cold brew. So this week, I decided to make a red wine ice cream, and to add to the fall flare, poached pears. So let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Red Wine with Poached Pears.

Oddly, we’ve never made a straight up red wine ice cream before, so this is what I set out to do. I chose this really easy drinking Zinfandel that is loaded with dark berry flavors. The wine is boiled hard and reduced to almost nothing before we add it into our organic cane sugar base. The base is cooled and ready for the churn.

For the pears, I diced to poach them. I knew this route would give me full control over their flavor. Instead of the classic wine poached pears with spices, I went back to a very similar flavor pairing I did a few years back – Pear Mascarpone with Prosciutto and Red Wine Caramel. The combo of the prosciutto and pears with the red wine was fantastic. In my head: pork products in ice cream commence. To start with I picked up some of these Oregon grown Concorde Pears from the Seward Coop. They are firm like a d’anjou pear, but quite a bit sweeter. They get peeled and quartered before being poached in a bath of simple syrup, peppercorns, and here it comes…wait for it…bacon! After the pears are poached, they are dehydrated in the oven for a while so they’re not icy when frozen. Cause no one wants icy fruit in their ice cream, right? Right! The pears are diced and tossed into the red wine ice cream at the end of the churn.

A delectable red wine ice cream with bacon poached pears. It’s ice cream for those cool fall evenings.

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 10/24/14 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!

October 16, 2014

Masala Chai Chocolate Chunk

Sometimes our quest for new flavors and combinations blinds us to what is right in front of us. The idea of Chai and dark chocolate was spur of the moment decision while browsing through tea last week. It seemed like a nice fall, warming (yet obviously cooling) flavor that offered the comfort of simplicity and well, chocolate. I also seem to subconsciously create flavors based on the ingredients ability to provide alliteration in the title. So, I snatched up this Masala Chai mix and grabbed a couple of super dark chocolate bars and was off.

The Masala chai is steeped in our sweet cream base, until infused into the ice cream. The tea is strained out after the hot steep with an ultra fine mesh strainer.

The chocolate I chose for this flavor is a super dark organic chocolate bar from Equal Exchange. It’s broken into jagged pieces and thrown into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

The scoop is a delicately spiced Masala Chai ice cream filled with chunks of dark, dark chocolate. Perfect for a fall night.

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 10/17/14 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!

October 8, 2014

Toasted Oak with Sweetland Orchard Hard Cider Syrup

Grilling/barbecuing is a favorite of ours, in particular, the technique of smoking, which got me thinking about trying to infuse wood flavor into our ice cream. You know, think of that cedar smell when you’re in a sauna. I wanted to get that into the ice cream, but not cedar. In particular, oak. I just wasn’t sure about using any ordinary oak gathered from the woods to put in our ice cream, so I did a little research, and of course, they sell prepared oak chips and shavings at the home brew store for brewing beer and wine. !!! Now that I have my oak, the obvious pairing was wine, but hard ciders are big right now, and tis the season for cider, so I wondered if there were any hard ciders that got aged in an oak barrels. But more importantly, can I find a locally produced cider? And I did, which brings me to this week’s flavor – Toasted Oak with Sweetland Orchard Hard Cider Syrup

I stopped into Northern Brewer and their helpful staff walked me through their wood chip/shaving varieties, and I decided to go with a medium toasted oak chip. I didn’t want to overpower the ice cream, but also didn’t want it to be virtually unrecognizable. My thought was to steep the oak chips in our ice cream base (as we do with pretty much everything) in hopes that I would achieve that toasted oak taste, as it smells, in the actual cream. It worked! And by worked, I mean worked. Basically it worked. Really well. Better than expected. After the steep, the chips get strained out, the base is cooled and is ready for the churn.

Next, cider syrup! First and foremost, I wanted to find a locally produced hard cider, but I was hoping to find one that was fermented in oak barrels. I found this Sweetland Orchards Northern Spy Hard Cider, from Webster, MN, but couldn’t find any info on their fermentation process. The cider itself though was really interesting and delicious. It is a dry cider, and as the bottle suggests, a champagne cider. It was exactly that. It had both cider and champagne qualities, which in my mind, was perfect for this flavor pairing. For the syrup, I reduced the cider down by a half to two thirds to condense flavors, then added sugar to make a syrup. The syrup is swirled into the ice cream before packaging.

The end result is a toasted oak ice cream that is almost caramelly layered with a hard cider syrup AKA apple wine. It’s a unique and delicious combo, and one that you’ll only find here.

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 10/10/14 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!

October 2, 2014

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.

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.

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..

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

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!