Toasted Grits with Maple Syrup

The original concept for this flavor began with the idea of somehow using polenta – which is very similar to grits but has subtle differences, such as the type of corn used..but that’s elaboration for another time.  The fact is I had grits on hand, so out of convenience came a slight course deviation that led here.  Why?  Well, for one – I love breakfast themed ice cream flavors.  I also love grits, and grits for breakfast so I ran with it.  Plus, It’s maple syrup season, so it would only be right to have a flavor with some maple syrup in it.  Truthfully, we use maple syrup and maple sugar pretty often, but we’ll happily take advantage of an excuse to use it more.

 

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Now regular course ground grits uncooked don’t have a whole lot of flavor.  So I chose to toast the grits just a bit in a hot pan to bring some more of the flavor to life.

 

Toasting grits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the same time, a basic ice cream base is prepared and heated on the stove.  The idea is to have the the base heated to around 115 degrees or so, and to add the hot toasted grits into the warm cream to coax as much flavor out as possible.  Once the base is finished cooking the grits are strained out with a fine mesh strainer.  A little bit is reserved to add just a little crunch to the ice cream without being grainy.

 

Maple Syrup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, the syrup.  There is so much good maple syrup to choose from in the midwest.  This particular flavor of ice cream was blessed with some of the fine goodness produced by the folks of Anderson’s Maple Syrup in Cumberland, WI.  The maple magic is layered in as the ice cream is packed into the pint containers.

 

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The finished product reminds me a bit of the cereal corn pops.  It’s rich ice cream, infused with a toasted corn flavor, and wonderfully accented with a swirl of rich maple syrup.

 

 

Toasted Grits with Maple Syrup Ice Cream Recipe

(makes approx 1-1/2 quarts)

Ingredients:

1 Cup of course ground corn grits (polenta would also work)
1/2 Cup of Maple Syrup
2 Cups Heavy Cream
1 Cup Whole Milk (use any fat percentage you prefer – higher lends to a creamier base)
3/4 Cup of Sugar
2 Eggs
1 teaspoons salt

 

Instructions:

Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add sugar and whisk until sugar and eggs are combined. Add cream, salt and whisk again until all are fully incorporated.  Place in pot in preparation to cook the base and get it started warming over medium heat on the stove, timed so it is starting to warm when the grits are finished toasting and still hot.

Add 1 cup of grits to heavy pan and heat over medium high, stirring frequently until they start to smoke and just begin to lightly brown.  Add immediately to warm ice cream base.

Continue to cook ice cream base over medium heat, stirring continuously. Heat 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).  Strain out all cooked grits with a fine mesh strainer.  You can toss the cooked grits, or if you’re creative find another use for them, (they taste pretty amazing on their own). Place strained ice cream mix in a container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

3.  Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Layer in maple syrup as you pack the ice cream into the container you will freeze it in.  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 4/17/15 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!
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Maple Maple Swirl

Happy New Year y’all! The holidays are sadly behind us, but alas, a new FrozBroz flavor is right before us. As we’ve mentioned before, we take inspiration for our flavors from just about anything, anyone, anywhere. This week, it was a holiday gift idea from our buds Jill and Derrick Pulvermacher that had the stars aligning for our flavor: Maple Maple Swirl.

It turns out that Derrick’s father, Jerry Pulvermacher, produces a small lot of fantastic maple syrup every year with a few of his buddies in Plain, WI. Jill and Derrick thought it would be nice gift idea if we could create a flavor that featured Jerry’s maple syrup. How could we resist?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The maple syrup hand-off was made and history begins. About ten years ago Jerry and some of his friends started making maple syrup. It was the start of a hobby, and one that was likely a good excuse to have a few beers in the woods with the guys. In their first year they only tapped about 75-80 tress and produced 1-2 gallons just for themselves. The sap was originally cooked over a fire in an open pan. As time went on, demand increased as more people got their lips on their syrup. The guys tapped more and more trees each year, and about 5 years ago, they purchased an evaporator and started bottling and selling. In 2011 they tapped 350 trees and ended up with 160 gallons of syrup. That’s a lot, right? Well, I was pretty shocked to find out that it takes 50 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup. You can do the math on that one. In 2012 they tapped 650 trees and only produced 165 gallons of syrup. If you remember, last years winter was mild, and Spring was warm. It’s a true snap shot of how climate change can really effect maple syrup producers. We have our fingers crossed for Jerry and his buddies down in Plain, WI because their maple syrup is liquid gold, and we hope they keep producing for years to come. If you’re in the area, you can find their syrup at local restaurants and cheese shops in and around Wisconsin Dells as well as the Wollersheim Winery.

For the ice cream, we wanted to slap Jerry right in the face with the intense maple flavor of his syrup. We decided we needed to flavor the ice cream base with the syrup, and also, make a reduction to swirl in as a sort of maple syrup caramel. As ice cream makers, the dilemma once again, is making sure that we aren’t adding too much water content to our mix, as the texture will become icy and undesirable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To avoid that, we once again, boil the syrup down and reduce it to a thick caramel consistency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The syrups sugars are now condensed enough that it flows off of a spoon more like honey than maple syrup. At this point, we set aside some of the reduction for layering into the pints during packaging, and we reduce the remaining syrup a little more before adding it straight into our ice cream base. The ice cream mix is heavily salted before churning.

 

 

Maple Maple Swirl

 

 

 

The result is a dense salty creamy maple ice cream layered with pockets of reduced Hilltop Sugar Bush Maple Syrup. Cheers, Jerry!

 

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 1/4 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!

 

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