We’re knee deep in the bounty of summer’s harvest here in Minnesota, and considering that we only release one new flavor every week, it becomes difficult to decide what fruits or vegetables to utilize on a weekly basis with so many to choose from. And then sometimes, it just falls in your lap. Kind of like when your all time favorite farmers drop you a line asking if you might want to play around with some of their harvested wares. That’s just what happened. Two of the hardest working ladies in the business, AKA Bossy Acres, threw us a healthy dose of their fennel leaves. Seriously Bossy Acres, you two are the bomb digs for finding something new and exciting for us to work with. For those of you who have followed our journey here, you know that we’ve pretty much put the fennel plant through the ringer in our ice cream. A few years back we starting with our Almond Green Anise with Figs, then, our Fennel with Candied Orange, and finally, but until today, not last, our Fennel Pollen. This week, we set out to utilize the last portion of the fennel plant in our ice cream, so lets get started with this week’s flavor: Fennel Leaf.
Bossy Acres fennel leaves! On my way to pick them up, my mind was racing with flavor ideas and parings. Picking them up, the first thing I noticed was how fragrant they were. The leaves were emitting this amazing sweet licorice aroma. I knew immediately that I had to try using them on their own. It was now plain and clear what brought our Bossy sisters to wonder if these leaves were something we could do something with.
I wanted to try and get all of that sweet licorice flavor out of the leaves, so I tossed them in the blender with the cream and pureed. We then added the cream and pureed fennel leaves to our standard organic cane sugar ice cream base. This base was then cooked with the fennel leaves still in it and strained through a fine mesh seive. After a cool down, the fennel leaf base was ready for a churn.
The results: a beautiful fennel flavor that is earthy, almost grassy tasting with a subtle hint of sweet licorice. Surprising to us, it turned out much less licoricey then we had anticipated. This flavor would make for a fantastic first course. Cheers to Bossy Acres for making this week’s FrozBroz flavor decision easy.
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 8/16/13 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!
