Flavors – Page 11

November 18, 2014

Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel

Finally, the time is here. What time? Mushroom time!! What we’ve been waiting for, I really don’t know, because my mind is completely blown. We’ve contemplated mushrooms in ice cream before…of course we have, but even after all of the crazy shit that we’ve put into our ice cream, mushrooms still didn’t seem like the best idea. And then a few years ago I was chatting with chef Thomas Boemer, of Corner Table, and he suggested using candy cap mushrooms. And then all of this time passed, and for what? Well, we’ve put out a lot of good flavors since then, but this candy cap thing…this should have happened sooner. And since we’re giving thanks next week, we thought we’d make this one a little more festive. You know, with pumpkin. Besides, after just smelling the candy caps, pumpkin is surely going to be a winning combo. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel.

These are dried candy cap mushrooms. Right out of the gate they smell like earthy maple syrup. I’m already freaking out with excitement. For the ice cream, we grind the dried mushrooms and mix it into our sweet cream base. The base is cooked, aka pasteurized, steeped, cooled, and then the mushrooms are strained out with a fine mesh strainer. During the steeping process, the sweet earthy aromas of the candy caps are flying out of the pot. Seriously amazing! The base is given a generous salting and is ready for the churn.

Next, the pumpkin caramel. Like everything we do, it’s done from scratch. We start with a whole pie pumpkin, clean it, and roast it. The roasted pumpkin mash is then incorporated with the cream we will use for our caramel. For the caramel, first, we caramelize the sugar. Once our sugar has turned a deep amber color and begins smoking, we add our pumpkin cream. Our pumpkin caramel is finished with sea salt, is cooled, and is ready to be layered into our pints.

Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel. Finally, the time is here. And, to one of many things we’ll be giving thanks to next week, thanks chef Thomas for the hot tip.

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 11/21/14 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!

November 13, 2014

Pecan Brittle

Who doesn’t like some good brittle? This flavor came solely from my desire to make brittle and to also make a pecan flavor of ice cream. So why not accomplish my hopes and dreams by making pecan brittle and throwing it in some scratch made ice cream?

First came the brittle. My experience making brittle is limited, but it’s not nearly as complicated as one might think. All you need is a candy thermometer, sugar, butter, baking soda, whatever nut suits your fancy and some patience and time. For a great recipe and the one I used, check out this post at My Baking Addiction.

First, the pecans are roasted and salted well. We always roast our own pecans because it’s easy, and they are always better than what you can buy at the store.

Above is a shot of the brittle mix at full boil right before being poured out onto a sheet pan. What I neglected to take a picture of is the brittle being poured out onto the pan, partly because I was pretty occupied with the process and partly because you don’t have much time to spread it out before it cools and hardens. The end is by far the trickiest part of the process, mostly to avoid coating yourself with boiling sugar.

Here, my ice cream fellows, is the finished Pecan brittle with a generous helping of sea salt, just waiting to be thrown into the ice cream bath. The brittle was broken into even smaller pieces than this and adding in to the sweet cream mix right at the end of the churn.

And here is the scoop – our simple sweet cream base chock full of luscious crunchy chunks of pecan brittle.

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 11/14/14 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!

November 5, 2014

Orange Blossom Green Tea with Pomegranate Syrup

For many people, fall is tea season. Well, for tea drinkers it’s probably always tea season, but for my pregnant wife at least, the cooler temperatures bring a chill that only a cup of tea can warm. So why not put a little of that warmth into our ice cream? And well, we actually did that exact thing a couple of weeks back with our Masala Chai Chocolate Chunk. This week, we’re doing it again. With such endless varieties of tea to work with, we might be steeping loose leaf tea all winter. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Orange Blossom Green Tea with Pomegranate Syrup.

This is loose leaf organic orange blossom green tea. The brew consists of jasmine, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, rose, orange and lime. That is a lot of stuff, and guaranteed, steeping it in our ice cream is going to bring out all of those flavors and aromas. Most teas require a certain temperature for steeping, which allows maximum flavor infusion, yet keeps it tasting subtle and fresh. This temperature range is usually between 175-190 degrees Fahrenheit, and that’s just too hot for our ice cream base, so to give our ice cream proper justice, we’re going steep the tea in our cream and milk before making our ice cream base. After the steep, we strain out the tea, make our ice cream base, cook it, cool it, and it is ready to be churned.

Next, the pomegranate syrup. I wanted a tart juice to contrast the smooth orange blossom tea infusion, and walking through the isle of juices, pomegranate spoke to me. It said, “Take me. Take me to that place. Take me to ice cream town.” It was meant to be, I guess. This is organic cold pressed 100% pomegranate juice. It’s tart, but not overpoweringly tart, like say cranberry juice would be. For the syrup, we reduced the pomegranate juice down a little to concentrate flavors and then add cane sugar. The result is a pomegranate syrup having the consistency of honey. So pretty much, this is pomegranate honey. It gets swirled into the ice cream before packaging.

Orange Blossom Green Tea with Pomegranate Syrup – ice cream to warm you.

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 11/7/14 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 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!