Tarragon Beurre Blanc

Last month we put some Minnesota grown grapes to work by making our Black Pepper Grape Syrup, Pita Cracker and Chevre ice cream. At that time we tossed around the idea of making some type of wine ice cream in connection with our friend Ryan Zepaltas at Zepaltas Wines in California (http://www.zepaltaswines.com/https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zepaltas-Wines/134095826644632). Ryan, the winemaker himself, has been honing his craft for over ten years, and while we don’t use his wine in this flavor, we can only imagine the killer results we will have when we do.

 

 

 

 

Beurre Blanc is French for “White Butter” and is traditionally made with wine, vinegar, shallots and butter. Here, we use a Chardonnay, and instead of vinegar, we use lemon juice. For everyone’s sanity, we decided to leave out the shallots. But lets not forget Minnesota’s own  Hope Creamery Butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We start out with the Chardonnay, lemon juice, peppercorns and a bay leaf. This gets reduced until almost dry at which point we add a bit of cream and then remove from the heat. We add our chilled butter, incorporate, strain,  and that’s it – Beurre Blanc!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is fresh Tarragon steeping away in our cream. We strain out the herb, add our Beurre Blanc and it all goes into the maker. Churn baby churn…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is – Tarragon Beurre Blanc Ice Cream!

 

 

 

And as every week previous, you can win one of two available pints of this weeks flavor, just leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (10/28/2011) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page. Our only condition is you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis. Good luck!

 

 

Facebook

Twitter
More...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Crisp with Sharp Cheddar

At some point while I was in high school I learned of the apple pie and sharp cheddar combination.  I was at a family dinner at my grandparents house when one of my uncles sat down at the table with a piping hot piece of my Grandmother’s freshly made apple pie – with a big slice of cheese slowly melting over the top.

Being used to only eating Apple pie with ice cream, this completely blew my mind.  Apple pie with…cheese?  I had to try it.  Once I did – I was hooked.  It was a flavor combination that was relatively foreign to me at the time, but as I grew older and realized how well fruit and cheese went together, it all made sense.

In this batch, we used some gorgeous Wolf River heirloom apples from our pal Slim LeDuc.

 

 

I don’t know what it is about gnarly looking fruit trees, but I like to imagine that the flavor of the fruit is so great it overwhelms the plant.

 

 

 

 

These babies were large and nice for slicing up and baking, but had thin skin and made for great eating on their own as well.

 

 

 

It was my first experience with Wolf River apples, and their sweet flavor lived up to their large size.

 

 

 

The apples were diced, tossed in cinnamon and sugar, and roasted in the oven to concentrate their flavor and reduce their water content.

 

 

 

These were very snack-able.

 

 

 

Since we’ve obviously already strayed from the traditional apple pie route, i chose to make more of a “crisp”  topping to throw in the ice cream with the apples – except this one is heavily concentrated with crushed, roasted pecans instead of the more commonly used oats.

 

 

And there’s much larger chunks than in traditional apple crips, to ensure there are some substantial bites in the ice cream.

 

 

 

Last but not least, rougly grated and chopped Sharp Wisconsin Cheddar cheese is added.  The cheddar provides a quick tangy back drop to the ice cream, and pairs incredibly well with both the apples and the pecan crisp.  Our Wisconsin blood has us constantly striving to find more ways to get dairy into your dairy.

 

 

 

Cheesy.

 

 

 

The end result is a fantastic ice cream, filled with roasted heirloom apples, crisp pecan crust, and good old Wisconsin cheese.  Hard to beat.

 

 

 

 
You can win one of two available pints this week, just  leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (10/7/2011) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page. Our only condition is you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis. Good luck!

Facebook
Twitter
More...

 

 

Plum Jam with Maple Orange Walnuts

In anticipation of our trip to Minnesota Peach, David Griffin’s fruit and vegetable farm in Cold Spring, MN(http://vimeo.com/27403794), we got to thinking about what we could pull together as a representative ice cream. David’s niece, Molly, kept us updated as to what was ripe and in season. It seemed every weekend something came up and we weren’t able to make it out to the farm.  Fortunately, this gave us time to conceptualize this one – Plum Jam with Maple Orange Walnuts.

 

 

 

We start with Cinderella Plums from Michigan, purchased at the Seward Coop. These plums are sweet and bright, but wait until we get our hands on some of David’s “Surprise” plums next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pitted and sliced, then thrown in a pan and toss with sugar and lemon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simmer Down. Plum Jam. Like Jammin? Check out Serious Jam www.serious-jam.com/ located here in Minneapolis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These Walnuts get slow roasted with Wild Country Maple Syrup from Lutsen, MN , then finished with orange zest, cinnamon and salt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Minnesota Peach for a huge amount of inspiration. To that – Plum Jam with Maple Orange Walnuts.

 

 

 

As usual, you can win one of two available pints this week — leave a comment on our facebook page at facebook.com/frozbroz to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, make your comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners later this afternoon and will announce them on our facebook page. Our only condition is you must be able to pick it up. Good luck!
Facebook
Twitter
More...

Vodka Blueberry and Basil

Its National Ice Cream Day! In celebration, we’re releasing a second flavor this week.

Peak blueberry season. Yeah!  You can buy them all year long, but like tomatoes, nothing compares to straight off the plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe its just us, but we can’t help thinking, these would be good with vodka, no?  Problem is, its not easy getting alcohol into ice cream without seriously disrupting the final product.

However, alcohol does provide one big benefit to using incorporating fruit into ice cream – if the fruit is soaked in it for long enough, it displaces the water in the berry and keeps the fruit from turning into an icy rock.

So we gave these big blue babies  a nice long vodka bath.

 

 

An added benefit: this steeping process leaves us with some tasty blueberry vodka to enjoy over ice while we finish making the batch.

 

 

 

To add some more powerful blueberry flavor, more blueberries were reduced into a syrup, with some of that blueberry vodka and sugar.

 

 

 

 

Waffles anyone?

 

 

Finally – to round it out..some fresh basil from the backyard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end product is a blueberry cream cocktail – little blueberry bombs full of vodka, floating in blueberry and basil ice cream.

Vodka Blueberry Basil Craft Ice Cream

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy National Ice Cream Day!  Leave a comment on our Facebook page to enter a chance to win a pint and have it delivered personally by us today.  http://www.facebook.com/frozbroz