Minneapolis Ice Cream – Page 4

October 18, 2012

Caramel Cinnamon Roll

A few weeks back I made a quick one-off flavor for a family gathering that was the genesis of this idea, using our sour cream base and the cinnamon syrup leftover from our Grilled Peach and Cinnamon Syrup flavor. The combination of the cinnamon, brown sugar and the sour cream base instantly reminded me of a cinnamon roll, and screamed for a treatment similar to the method we used a year ago for the Apple Fritter Apple Fritter flavor. Meaning it was time to hunt down the best cinnamon roll we could find, which wasn’t hard at all.

If you haven’t experienced the bakery utopia that is Michelle Gayer’s Salty Tart at the Midtown market, you are sorely missing out. I made a visit with a cinnamon rolls on the brain, but what I ended up with was nothing short of serendipity.

This is Salty Tart’s caramel roll monkey bread, and I can be completely honest in saying that this is one of the most amazing pieces of food I have EVER had. I’m talking an immediate nuclear powered rocket to the top of my final meal/stranded on a desert island type of sweet roll that knocked me straight out of my keds. I was expecting it to be good. But THIS good? Wow.

Suffice it to say, as long as we didn’t screw this up, we can’t really take credit for how good this ice cream really is because a large part of it has to do with this monkey bread.

What was even better, was the assembly of the small pieces into the final product made for a perfect match to get the maximum flavor out of the steeping process, AND for the glorious chunks that would go into this ice cream. The game plan commenced.

First some of the monkey bread was torn apart and slowly baked off in the oven to make it even more crunchy and help it retain its constitution in the ice cream base. As we’re wont to do.

As the monkey bread morsels were getting their crunch on, we mixed up a sour cream base to best represent the cream cheese icing you would have on a stereo typical cinnamon roll.

We then took the remainder of the monkey bread and steeped it in the warm cream to soak up the starchy, buttery goodness of the bread. This process nets not only an ice cream base that actually tastes a lot like the monkey bread, but the starch from the bread leeches into the cream and makes exceptionally silky.

Then, the cinnamon caramel – I realized in making the first iteration of this that I actually preferred the caramel to be grainy – it provided a little crunch and extra sweetness that I liked, so we cooked the syrup to end up with a grain to it- not usually what you want when making caramel.

For the end product the caramel was swirled in amongst the amazing chunks of crunchy monkey bread, all swimming in a silken monkey bread ice cream.

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 10/12 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!

October 11, 2012

Black Walnut

Here in Minnesota the leaves are starting to fall off the trees, which means that soon the dreaded raking begins. And thanks to our friends at the Minnesota Peach farm in Cold Spring, MN, so does the arduous process of preparing black walnuts for peoples mouths. You thought raking sucked? Try prepping a black walnut for baking and eating. There’s just five easy steps: harvest, hulling, curing, cracking and storage. So easy in fact, that all have their sensitivities and can easily be botched along the way. So why, you might ask, would anyone go through the trouble of harvesting black walnuts? Because black walnuts have this crazy robust flavor that is unlike anything else. It’s what we like to call “unique”. And that’s why we decided to make this weeks flavor: Black Walnut. Let’s get started!

These are processed Black Walnuts from Minnesota Peach. Seriously, if you’ve never had a black walnut before, they have a flavor like no other. They have a rich, buttery earthiness that could be likened to a mushroom, although there is also a blueberry muffin-esk note that complicates the initial flavor blast on your palate. It’s a wild and crazy ride people.

And let us point out, you can’t just run out to your local grocer and purchase these things. These nuts are locally hand harvested and processed.

Getting back to the ice cream…we wanted to make a creamy ice cream that is infused with that unique black walnut flavor, and in the end, that is what we did. The walnuts get a nice roasty toasty in the oven, cooled, and then into the food processor.

The pulverized roasted black walnuts get added into our heated ice cream base for a steeping session. All those crazy nut oils and flavors become one with the ice cream base, and then the nut solids get strained out. Into the mixer and…

There you have it! FrozBroz Black Walnut infused ice cream! A little something Fall to take the edge off after raking those leaves. Locally crafted ice cream made with locally grown, harvested and processed ingredients.

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 on Friday 10/12 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback or else 🙂 . Good luck!

October 4, 2012

Fig, Fennel Pollen and Feta

How’s that for alliteration?

A few weeks ago we were brainstorming flavors, and as fate would have it, our friends Molly and Dave from Minnesota Peach called up with some fresh Minnesota grown figs and serendipity did the rest. The pressure always mounts a bit when we get a precious bucket of fruit from Dave’s farm, and for this one we wanted to do something decadent. So we did what we do best – we took one of our favorite bases as of recent – Fennel Pollen, and combined it with the fruit and of course (being proper Midwestern boys) some cheese.

We started with the figs. Molly delivered them perfectly ripe and they went immediately in a pot to be reduced down with sugar and lemon zest to create a rich fig puree.

The figs cooked down like good little minnesota fruits, and we ended up with this luxurious fig jam.

Then it was time for the cheese. We had decided on Feta, but there are so many options. A visit to our favorite Co-op led us to this incredibly french made Sheeps Milk Feta. It is a very creamy Feta and more mild than Spanish or Greek varieties but still retains a nice salty kick.

To prepare it for the ice cream, we froze it first and then chopped it in its frozen state to keep it from crumbling too fine and turning the ice cream into a crumbly mess. We want the chunk to be significant enough to takeover the palate for a brief moment but small enough to not overwhelm the other flavors.

For the base, we used our Fennel Pollen – which we have developed a serious love affair with and will likely be using this for upcoming flavors as a Vanilla might typically be used.

Fennel Pollen before going into the cream.

The fennel pollen ice cream was spun with the Feta going in at the end and the fig jam layered in as the ice cream goes into the pint.

Its good. Its real good. Little chunks of salty and creamy that melt into your mouth while you get bursts of figgy goodness all enveloped by the royal fennel pollen ice cream.

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 on Friday 9/28 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback or else 🙂 . Good luck!

September 27, 2012

Oat Granola with Caramel Apples

The autumnal equinox has now past, so we have officially moved into Fall. The weather outside is showing it too, with twenty and thirty degree temperature fluctuations between night and day. The sun is rising later and setting sooner, which makes us all antsy to get out and get the most out of our days while we can. One of those great fall traditions that I shared with my family was hitting up the local apple orchard for picking, sipping cider, and if we were lucky, chowing a caramel apple. And that’s the inspiration for this weeks FrozBroz flavor: Oat Granola with Caramel Apples. Lets get to it!

My three year old son is crazy for granola and yogurt, which pretty much makes it a morning staple at our house with the addition of some sort of fruit. Fruit and granola go hand in hand, so I thought it would make a nice base flavor for this weeks ice cream.

Our granola is comprised of rolled oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, honey, brown sugar, oil, cinnamon and vanilla.

Everything gets tossed together and baked on a parchment lined baking sheet at a low temperature. It warms the house, and the aroma reeks of Fall.

This granola gets thrown into our brown sugar ice cream base and steeps over night. During the steeping process, the oats, seeds, and nuts break down and soften up releasing their starches into the ice cream base. After the granola gets pressed through a fine mesh strainer, the result is an ice cream base packed with oat starch, making for an ultra rich granola flavored ice cream.

Apples! Hoch Orchard Organic Gala Apples to be precise. I’ve found that I really dig Gala apples when making ice cream. As we always preach, one of our biggest challenges with fruit is getting out moisture content so it’s not icy the creams. Not that Galas aren’t moist, but they have a classic sweet apple flavor and when cooked down or baked, their juices condense with that powerfully sweet apple flavor.

And that’s just what we do with them. The apples get pealed, diced and tossed with a little butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. They’re placed on a parchment lined sheet pan and slow roasted in the oven until dehydrated and condensed in to soft apple pillow chunkers. Caramel time!

So we make a traditional caramel starting with just plain sugar and a little water. It gets boiled down until it turns an amber color and starts smoking a bit, at which point we add in our cream, stir, and that’s it! We have caramel!

We pour the hot caramel over our roasted apple chunkers and here’s what you get. Caramel Apple Chunkers! They get tossed into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

The final result is a rich creamy granola flavored ice cream with chewy caramel apple chunks. And that’s the beginning of Fall in a scoop.

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 on Friday 9/28 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback or else 🙂 . Good luck!

September 6, 2012

Beet Sour Cream Habanero with Chocolate Swirl

We’re nearing the end of the summer harvest which means a scramble to get our hands on all the local produce we can and figure out ways to use it. We’ve been scheming on root vegetables for awhile, and experimented a bit, but this flavor crosses into new territory for us. We stretched our legs, and gave it a hint of spice from one of the hottest peppers you can get your mitts on, and added a nice chocolate ganache swirl for kicks.

Beets are plentiful at the farmers markets, and we picked some up from our neighborhood favorite – (Midtown Farmers Market).

Coincidentally, I happened across a pile of these beautiful habaneros as well. The flavor of the habanero pepper is often overlooked because they are so hot, but if the seeds are removed they can be very tolerable in small amounts. The red pigment and sweetness of the beet, along with the heat of the habanero seemed to be the perfect one-two pair. After all, red means HOT right?

The ice cream was a 3 step process. First, the beets were pureed with a little bit of water to bring the juice out of them.

Damn if that color isn’t gorgeous.

After pureed, we strain out the pulp and reserve the juice to reduce into a syrup.

I think I accidentally discovered a recipe for fake blood in this process. But I digress..

For this flavor, we use our sour cream ice cream base since it pairs so well with beets and pepper everywhere else. While the beet juice cooks down, we take the reserved pulp along with the (1) seeded habanero pepper and steep them in the hot ice cream mix, then strain again at the end. This process allows us to keep the starchy/grainy vegetable out of the end product, but maximize the beet flavor and retain some of the heat of the pepper without making the ice cream an endurance/sanity contest. The heat ends up being incredibly subtle and tolerable even to my 4 year old son. Yes it could certainly be hotter.

Finally, the scratch made chocolate ganache, is added in to the ice cream as a swirl for an extra twist.

There you have it. Beet Sour Cream Habanero with Chocolate Swirl Ice Cream. A beet and habenero infused sour cream ice cream with little ribbons of chocolate ganache. The beet provides a unique earthy sweetness which goes great with the hint of chocolate and ends with a nice bit of heat on the back of your palette.

If you’re interested in trying –

Every week, we give two pints away of our new flavor in a random drawing. To enter, leave a comment on our facebook page or, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (9/7/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page (or email you if you’re comment resides here). Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and agree to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!