July 2015 – FROZBROZ

July 28, 2015

Sage Blueberry

Summer harvest is in full swing, and to utilize the bounty we’re bringing together herbs and berries. Like our friend Heidi of Serious Jam, we’re bringing together sage and blueberries. An unlikely paring maybe, but hit up the farmers market this weekend and get your hands on a jar of her blueberry bourbon sage jam. You won’t be sorry. You won’t be sorry if you win a pint of our ice cream this week either. Here’s how we’re going to go about this week’s flavor – Sage Blueberry.

First, we’re going to establish a sage ice cream base. As we often do with fresh herbs, we’re going to infuse our standard cane sugar ice cream base by steeping the herbs during the pasteurization process. The sage is chopped, steeped, and then strained out. We chill down the infused base, and it’s ready to churn.

Next, we’re going to make a freezer type blueberry jam using these blueberries from the Rabideaux’s Bayfield Fruit Company. The blueberries are crushed, lemon juice and sugar are added, and the jam is simmered down until proper consistency is achieved. After the jam is cooled, it is swirled into the sage ice cream during the packaging process.

Utilizing the bounty one ingredient at a time. Earthy sage infused ice cream with ribbons of local blueberry jam.

Sage Blueberry

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
1/4 cup Sage, chopped
1 teaspoon Sea salt

Blueberry Jam:
2 cups Blueberries
1/2 Lemon, juiced, seeds removed
3/4 cup Cane Sugar

Instructions:

1. Make blueberry jam: Place a plate in the freezer. Place blueberries in medium sauce pan. Using a potato masher, crush blueberries(leave some whole). Add lemon juice and sugar, and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir until bubbles subside and jam appears slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. To test doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; cover and chill completely.

2. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk, and salt. Whisk until ingredients are combined. Add Sage.

3. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. Allow sage to steep for 10 minutes. Strain base into a clean bowl with a fine mesh strainer. Cool ice cream base to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Cover base, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Swirl in blueberry jam after ice cream is in storage container. Store ice cream in air tight container in freezer until chow time.

*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 7/31/15 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!

July 23, 2015

Black Currant Cassis w/Black Pepper

Our friend Heidi Skoog recently picked up a windfall of black currants from the amazing Blue Fruit Farm in Winona, MN. They literally live up to their name by only growing blue fruits. How cool is that? Definitely a place worth visiting for their exotic varieties of berries, including these black currants. I’ll be honest, I’ve never had a black currant that wasn’t dried before, and the fresh black currant is one of the most unique tasting berries I’ve come across. Slightly smoky in flavor, they are almost more savory than sweet. I couldn’t have been more excited to make ice cream with them. For a twist, why not throw in a little Cassis and some black pepper?

The flavor begins by making a jam out of the currants. Its the same jam process we use for everything and in this case will also provide the bulk of the sweetness for the ice cream. Cassis, a black currant liqueur, is added in once the jam is cooled (so as not to lose the flavor) to give it even more dimension.

To make the ice cream, we start with a simple cream base but use only a fraction of the sugar we typically do because the black currant jam is already sweet. The jam is blended directly into the base and gives it a beautiful purplish hue. Fresh cracked black pepper is added while the base is cooked, to infuse a subtle bite into the currant-y cream.

The scoop is a wondefully complex black currant cassis ice cream with a little bite of black pepper.

Black Currant Cassis w/ Black Pepper Ice Cream

Black Currant Cassis jam ingredients:
1 pint black currants (about 1/2 pound)
1 Cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon of Cassis liqueur

Ice Cream ingredients:
1 Cup of Milk (whatever fat percentage you prefer)
2 Cups of Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup of sugar
1 Cup of Currant Cassis Jam
1/4 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

Instructions for the Jam: Place a plate in the freezer (this will come in handy in a bit). In a medium saucepan combine the currants and lemon juice. Let stand for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in sugar. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir the mix until the bubbles subside and the jam appears slightly thickened, somewhere around 15 minutes. To test for doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam is gooey and wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. This means it will not be icy in the cream which you do not want. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; then add cassis and black pepper when jam is cool. Cover and chill completely until you are ready to make the ice cream.

Instructions for ice cream: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add sugar and currant jam and whisk until fully combined. Add heavy cream, milk, and salt. Whisk again until all ingredients are fully blended. Base will take on the bluish purple color of the currants.

Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously. Keep stirring continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. Cool ice cream base to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Put base in a clean container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

5. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Place ice cream is in freezer proof storage container and store ice cream for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait.

*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 7/24/15 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!

July 15, 2015

Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly

It was a Saturday not too long ago at our cabin in Wisconsin; a beautiful day. It was late afternoon happy hour, and as always the trove of hors d’oeuvres were laid out on the table; Merkts, crackers, sausage, humus, veggies, olives, pickles, chips, salsa, and a classic that my mother has been eating for as long as I can remember; cream cheese and pepper jelly. It’s this one that hit me. The creaminess of the cream cheese and the subtle tartness and spiciness of the pepper jelly that cuts right through…it’s a wonderful combination. After all of these years of eating it myself, it finally dawned on me that this should be an ice cream flavor. And now it will be. So let’s get to this week’s flavor – Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly

Cream cheese! Plain old awesome cream cheese. It makes the world a better place. Also, it makes for a great ice cream as well. We add it into our standard organic cane sugar ice cream base before pasteurization. It makes for an ultra-rich creamy base that will pair great with the pepper jelly.

Next, we make our pepper jelly starting with green and red bell peppers and jalapenos. The peppers are cleaned and pureed in a food processor with crushed red pepper flakes. Cane sugar and vinegar are added. The only hesitation I had with this flavor was the vinegar in the pepper jelly, but as I mentioned in my opening, it is that subtle tartness from the vinegar that cuts right through the richness of the cream cheese.

The mixture is brought to a boil. Technically this will be a pepper syrup of sorts, because when frozen, we want our syrup to be the consistency of jelly. So instead of adding a jelling agent, we’re going to cook out this syrup to the desired consistency. To do this, we put a plate in the freezer. While the jelly is boiling, we take a spoonful out and pour onto our cold plate. The cold plate chills the jelly immediately, and we’re able to see where the viscosity is at. If it’s too runny, we keep cooking it. If it’s too thick, we pull from the heat, add a little water, and test again. We like to be able to run our finger through the cold syrup and have it wrinkle without too much effort. After the syrup is cooled and the cream cheese base is churned, we swirl in the pepper jelly.

Happy hour hors d’oeuvres in ice cream form. It’s a delightfully creamy cheesy ice cream layered with ribbons of hot pepper jelly. Perfect for a hot summer day at the cabin.

Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly

Pepper Jelly:
1 Red bell pepper, small
1/2 Green bell pepper, small
2 Jalapenos
1 1/2 cup White vinegar
6 cups Cane sugar
1 teaspoon Red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Sea salt

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1/2 cup Milk
4 oz. Cream cheese
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
3/4 teaspoon Sea salt

Instructions:

1. Make pepper jelly: Place a plate in the freezer. In food processor, puree all peppers. In a medium saucepan combine pepper puree with remaining ingredients. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir until bubbles subside and jam appears slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. To test doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; cover and chill completely.

2. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk, and salt. Whisk until ingredients are combined. Add cream cheese.

3. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously to break up cream cheese. Keep stirring continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. Cool ice cream base to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Put base in a clean container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Swirl in pepper jelly after ice cream is in storage container. Store ice cream in air tight container in freezer until chow time.

*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 7/17/15 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!

July 8, 2015

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!