December 2014 – FROZBROZ

December 25, 2014

Julekage Peanut Butter

Merry Christmas! Nostalgia runs wild this time of year, and for many many years of my life Christmas was not complete without my Grandma’s Julekage. If you’re not familiar, Julekage is a dense scandinavian christmas bread most definable by raisins and cardamom. We always ate it for breakfast, toasted and slathered with peanut butter – thus the inspiration for this week’s celebratory flavor.

Rather than make croutons out of the Julekage which we often do with baked goods, we chose to deconstruct the Julekage and use it’s main components. For the base of the ice cream, we infused with toast scrapings to duplicate the toasted bread flavor, and paired that with cardamom.

We haven’t used peanut butter enough in ice cream, it’s true. For this flavor we thin it out with cream and make it into a sauce, and layer in.

Last but not least, the raisins are added in at the end.

The final result is a cardamom and toast ice cream, swirled with peanut butter and studded with raisins. Just like Grandma’s Christmas Julekage.

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 12/26/14 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!

December 15, 2014

Hot Chocolate with Candy Canes

In preparation for decorating our Christmas tree, my wife suggested to our five year old son that they make hot chocolate and put candy canes in it; a tradition that she remembers having as a child. So simple, yet it is always those simple traditions in food that become favorites. After all, they usually only come around once a year, which make them extra special, as well as something to look forward to. So this week, we’re taking that simple approach in re-creating a tradition of the past, and in our family, the future. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Hot Chocolate with Candy Canes

There are a number of great cocoas on the market, but we prefer to use Valrhona cocoa powder. It’s a cocoa that produces an intense chocolate flavor. Along with a nice helping of sugar and a shot of our high quality Madagascar vanilla extract, this hot chocolate is a rich exclamation to the “Swiss Miss” variety of hot chocolate I remember having as a kid. The cocoa powder and vanilla extract are added to our sweet cream base, cooked, cooled, and the hot chocolate ice cream base is ready for the churn. But first, candy canes…

Candy canes are fun and festive with their red and white colors, but not necessary in our ice cream; we don’t need any of those artificial colors. We decided to go with a more natural process. The process starts by boiling sugar, glucose and cream of tarter. Once the sugar reaches 280 degrees, we add our peppermint oil and pour onto a silicone baking mat. After the mixture cools a bit, we fold it up and pull, and again, fold and pull until the sugar starts to stiffen up. During the last pull, I gave the sugar a little twist. At a glance, this is a kind of a poor excuse for a candy cane, but honestly, who cares? We’re going to break them up and cover them all up with delicious rich chocolate ice cream. Screw the looks; it’s all about the flavor. We crush the canes and we toss them into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

It’s a rich hot chocolate ice cream studded with peppermint candy canes. It’s a simple tradition packed with flavor.

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 12/19/14 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!

December 10, 2014

Orange Clove Cranberry

Alright. As of last week we were just getting started with this whole Holiday thing. This week, its full immersion. Christmas trees up and decorated. Lights shining, Christmas music – the whole deal. Which means we are also in full swing on the holiday flavors here in ice cream land. This week flavor was more of a smattering of things that associate so well with this time of year: oranges cloves and cranberries – all of which combined into something pretty fantastic with a little cream and sugar.

All pretty nifty ingredients on their own, each with a significant role in holiday dishes, and awfully pretty together too.

To kick things off, the cranberries were cooked down with some orange juice and sugar to form a nice jam. As a finishing touch, we added a titch of vanilla.

For the ice cream base, we started with our standard sweet cream and steeped it with cloves, and orange zest. The jam was layered in as the ice cream was packed into the pint.

The end result is one purdy scoop. A delicate orange and clove scented ice cream, with swirls of vanilla orange cranberry jam.

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 12/11/14 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!

December 2, 2014

Douglas Fir with Chocolate Covered Pine Nuts

We are just getting into the holiday season, and for our family, this is about the time of year that we get our Christmas tree. Bringing the tree into the house immediately consumes the space with holiday fervor, in particular, the scent of a fresh cut pine. And it is that exact aroma that I wanted to infuse into our ice cream. To pair with it, I decided to stay true to the pine and chocolate coat it. So let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Douglas Fir with Chocolate Covered Pine Nuts.

To get started with the infusion, I used these douglas fir spring tips from Juniper Ridge. They are a perfect way to infuse that sweet earthy pine flavor into our ice cream base. After our base is heated the spring tips are steeped, the mix is cooled, and is ready for the churn.

Next, the chocolate covered pine nuts. I knew the ice cream would offer plenty of sweetness, so I decided to use an uber dark chocolate, 85% Cocoa from Theo. The chocolate is melted in a double boiler, but before the pine nuts go in, they are toasted in the oven. After the pine nuts are dipped in chocolate, they are cooled on parchment paper and salted. Once cooled, they’re broken up and tossed into the douglas fir ice cream at the end of the churn.

Snap into the holiday spirit. It’s Douglas Fir with Chocolate Covered Pine Nuts. We’re putting the Christmas tree in our ice cream.

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 12/5/14 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!