Minneapolis Ice Cream – Page 9

March 29, 2012

Baklava with Foxy Nutz and Salty Pomegranate Caramel

As we mentioned last week, we’ve been wanting to collaborate with some of our super-talented local food compadres, and last week, we did just that with Sheela Namakkal and her ultra in your face chocolate concoctions. This week, another one of kind talent, Erica Strait of Foxy Falafel brings her genius to our world of craft ice cream. Erica is turning out some of the best Falafel these twin cities have to offer using local and organic ingredients whenever possible; Falafel topped with green tahini, humus and cucumber mint yogurt. Make you thirsty? Wash it down with a cup of her homemade Kombucha. Never had it? You best check her twitter feed(@foxyfalafel) or Facebook page to see when and where you can catch her next at your local farmers market. Look out, because soon Foxy will be mobile with her newly purchased food truck.

Straight, or should I say Strait out of the gate, Erica had a goldmine of ideas, each consisting of multiple components. By the time I had my head wrapped around something, she threw in a couple more. Note to self…I’ll be calling Foxy next time I encounter a creative block. We were able to piece together more than one these ideas and come together as a whole in what FrozBroz calls Baklava with Foxy Nutz and Salty Pomegranate Caramel.

We ended up starting with these walnuts she makes…

I call them Foxy Nutz. They’re baked with egg whites, star anise, sugar, salt and a few other secret spices. The result is everything you want a nut to be; light, sweet, salty and spicy. There is a clean airiness to these nuts that is unprecedented. They’re going in at the end of the churn.

One of Erica’s original thoughts was an orange vanilla baklava, which morphed into the actual flavor of our ice cream base. I loved the idea of a baklava ice cream, but I knew the baked Phyllo wouldn’t hold up in the cream.

So, how do we make this work? I decided to butter up some Phyllo and bake it off in the oven. This can’t be a bad start, right?

Next, I warmed our cream. Tossed in some orange zest, cinnamon stick and cloves. And then, chopped up the baked buttery Phyllo and tossed that into the cream as well for a good ‘ol fashioned steeping. To my satisfaction, the cream absorbed the flavor and starches from the Phyllo, giving the base a baklava-esk flavor and an ultra rich texture. After the steep, we strain out all solids and our base is ready to rock ‘n roll into the mixer.

There were a couple of flavors Foxy threw out that involved pomegranate, and I really wanted to use it, because it’s something I hadn’t considered using in ice cream before. We both agreed that a salty pomegranate caramel would pair nicely with the flavors of the baklava cream base.

To make the caramel, I started with a 100% pure pomegranate juice(seen here) and reduced it down 3-4 times into a concentrate.

The concentrate then gets added to the caramel as it’s boiling down. The caramel gets a good salting, and after it’s cooled, it’s ready for layering into the pints during packaging.

Extremely smooth Baklava base, with sweet and salty spiced walnuts layered with the tartness of the salty pomegranate caramel.

Foxy Frozbroz unite!

Another flavor you can’t find anywhere else: Baklava with Foxy Nutz and Salty Pomegranate Caramel.

Want to try it for yourself?

As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this 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 (3/30/2012) 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 be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck! Also – don’t forget about our Indiegogo fundraising – we’ve got 43 days to go and need all the help we can get! http://www.indiegogo.com/frozbroz?a=446076

March 28, 2012

Apricot Parmesan – Fan Flavor Contest No. 1

Well, our first ever “Fan Flavor Contest”, is in the books. The winner got a stylin’ FrozBroz T-shirt, but more importantly we made a batch of their flavor and gave them a pint of it. Another lucky fan gets a pint as well. Based on the number of suggestions we got, we would have to say, it was a success. Thanks to all who made suggestions – they were all fantastic ideas. Stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter pages as we will be announcing more contests in the weeks and months to come. It was really great to see our fans’ creative minds at work. A big congratulations to Ann Harste who was our first ever winner with her suggestion of Apricot Parmesan.

Let’s get to work…

From the beginning we had thoughts of apricot marmalade. We just weren’t sure if we wanted to layer the marmalade in, or mix it right into our ice cream base. Either way, marmalade it was.

These are beautiful Turkish apricots purchased at our favorite Seward Coop.

To get the marmalade going, we diced them up, covered with water and brought them to a simmer.

After simmering for awhile, we added sugar and continued simmering until we ended up with…

Apricot marmalade!

This is gold. The depth of flavor here is intensely apricot, as one might expect. In the end, we decided to mix the marmalade into the base, and layer into the pints as well. Double bonus!

Having Wisconsin in our blood, we’ve incorporated a variety of cheeses into many of our flavors, including Parmesan. In our Olive Oil Parmesan ice cream we finely grated the cheese so that it would almost disappear in the base. For this flavor, we wanted to get a nice shaving to cut through the sweetness of the marmalade.

So that is what we did…shaved it. Sartori StraVeccio Parmesan from Plymouth, Wisconsin. It’s fruity, nutty and has some roasted caramel tones to it. To add a little more nuttiness, we added a pinch of fresh ground nutmeg to the base. The Parmesan shavers get tossed in at the end of the churn.

And there you have it folks. Our first ever “Fan Flavor Contest” comes to a close with Ann’s suggestion of Apricot Parmesan Frozbroz style. Congrats Ann, and excellent suggestion!

Don’t forget about our Indiegogo fundraising – we’ve got 44 days to go and need all the help we can get! http://www.indiegogo.com/frozbroz?a=446076

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A quick update: Ann got us her feedback in no time, and we thought we’d share it – but we can only take 50% of the credit since the idea was all Ann 🙂

Wow you guys! Could my prize be changed to a lifetime supply? Besides more for us, I’d like to serve some to all the people who wrinkled their noses at me when I told them the flavor.

Both apricot and Parmesan have the potential to dominate, but you interpreted the idea in a way I didn’t think of. Your ice cream recipe showcases both flavors while keeping them in balance with each other.

A truly decadent ice cream to savor slowly in order to appreciate the flavors and textures going on. I love to eat ice cream when it is like a treasure hunt to find all the goodies hidden in it. The apricot marmalade had an intensely deep and concentrated flavor and a great sticky texture with pieces of candied apricot. Finding the crumbles of Parmesan, which gave bursts of salty, tangy flavor, was my favorite part of the treasure hunt. And of course the body of the ice cream itself was luscious and creamy, with a hint of the apricot.

We all loved it.

My son started eating it and said “That’s really good tasting Parmesan!” My husband took one bite and exclaimed “OH, that is good! I didn’t think it would taste like this!”

To serve it, I made a shortbread crunch to sprinkle over the ice cream to replicate a favorite combination of mine which is a shortbread cookie topped with a cheese and something really sweet, like apricot or caramelized sugar. – Flavor Contest #1 Winner, Ann Harste

March 22, 2012

Sour Cream Vanilla Bean with Dark Chocolate Cake and Ganache Ribbon

We’ve been talking amongst ourselves over the past couple of months about wanting to collaborate more with some of our friends and fans on creating new flavors. The first collaboration with our friend Heidi Skoog and her Serious Jam was fantastic. We just completed our first fan flavor contest which we’ll be releasing next week, but we’ve also been lucky enough to have more of our compadres in town agree to throw their uber-talent into the mix (no pun intended). And the first of that crew: Sheela Namakkal, the local cupcake genius affectionately known to us as vice president of everything. If you stop down to the beautiful Mitre Box Framing Studio on Saturday mornings for “Cupcake Saturdays” (and we HIGHLY recommend you do) you’ll know why. She rules and her cupcakes rule more.

I have been wanting to do a vanilla bean ice cream with chocolate cake for a long time, and when I finally got around to it, Sheela was the first person I called. And as I expected, I was the one scrambling to figure out how to make the ice cream as good as the ingredients she produced to go in it.

Sheela rocked out some amazing dark chocolate cupcakes. These babies are as hand crafted as it gets and completed with 100% ScharffenBerger cocoa powder. They are DENSE with chocolate.

Dreamy.

To pair, she dreamed up some bitterwseet ganache, with a touch of irish cream and more 100% cocoa.

So much chocolate. So much.

So, it was my job to take this little stash that I so luckily procured, and turn it into ice cream.

First, as you’ve seen us do before, I disassembled the cupcakes into croutons, which were doused in brown butter, a little salt, and baked in the oven until they were crunchy enough to stand up in the cream.

These are far too snackable.

With the cake ready for it’s cream bath, it was time to address the cream itself.

We’ve used many variations of vanilla over the past years, but nothing beats the bean.

To pair with the vanilla, we used our sour cream base to give the typical vanilla flavor a little more depth and tang.

Westby’s is a cooperative creamery in Westby, Wisconsin and have been operating for over 100 years. It has a great flavor and texture, and incorporates seamlessly into our ice cream base. All sour creams are not equal.

The sour cream and vanilla seeds were mixed into the cream, tossed with the dark chocolate cake croutons and layered into the pints with the bittersweet ganache.

The dimensions of deep chocolate, hints of brown butter and salt, acidity from the sour cream and bright vanilla flavor are right in your face. And as Sheela would say, they are also “for your face”.

Want to try it for yourself?

As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this 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 (3/23/2012) 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 be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck! Also – don’t forget about our Indiegogo fundraising – we’ve got 50 days to go and need all the help we can get! http://www.indiegogo.com/frozbroz?a=446076

March 15, 2012

Spicy Thai Peanut with Candied Lime

Earlier this year, we contemplated using Sriracha in one of flavors. After suggesting the idea, a fan of ours proposed the idea of a Thai peanut. Ever since then peanuts and sri have been swimming through my brain, and although we didn’t use Sriracha here, the peanuts in this flavor pack a punch. Spicy Thai Peanut with Candied Lime.

Instead of Sriracha we decided to use Tien Tsin chilies from China. Here they are with lemon grass and limes. These three components along with salt are what bring life to the peanuts. We chose the Tien Tsin chilies because their spice hits you in the back of the throat. We wanted the the flavor of the cream to hit first and then bring it with a spicy finish. This is no joke folks, these peanuts pack a spicy punch.

The lemongrass, lime zest and chilies get pureed to a pulp in a food processor.

Look: peanuts! We roast em in the oven, drizzle with our reserved lime syrup(see below), and toss with salt and the spicy Thai puree. Then, back in the oven to dry.

Now here is where the reserved lime syrup comes from:

After peeling the lime we chop the zest, cover with water, and bring to a boil a few times to get all of the bitterness out. We then simmer the zest in a simple syrup until tender. The zest gets tossed with sugar and dried. What’s left over is a lime infused simple syrup great for mixed drinks, tea, or in this case, spicy Thai peanuts.

Here’s the finished products: candied lime and spicy Thai peanuts. Both are ready to get tossed into the churn.

Spicy Thai Peanut with Candied Lime. Each bite starts with a sweet sugary burst of lime, and then a crunchy peanut with a spicy finish.

Want to try some for yourself?

As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this 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 (3/16/2012) 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 be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!

February 2, 2012

Oat with Maple Brown Sugar

Since we got the breakfast creams started last week, we decided, why not keep a good thing going. This is our second installment of breakfast flavors that are really inspired by the season. The sun is still low in the sky, and all anyone wants to do is lay in bed a little longer, drink coffee, and slowly work your way to making a comforting breakfast. Of course, all while wearing pajamas.

Oats are not something that we’ve used in our ice cream before. They are high in starch content, and in our past experiences, vegetables high is starch pose bigger challenges to balance texture. In the case of oats, we have found a starch match made in heaven for our ice cream.

These are the organic regular rolled oats that we purchase at our haunt, The Seward Coop, from Whole Grain Milling Company located in Welcome, MN.

Welcome to our ice cream base oats. This is when the magic starts to happen. We slowly bring our base to a simmer with the oats, and then allow to steep for a few hours. During this cooking/steeping process the oats release their starches into our ice cream base; the same starches that make oatmeal so delicious and creamy. The base gets strained through a fine sieve before getting churned in the maker.

The oats provide a subtle flavor profile that is so familiar yet is almost forgotten because of the texture take over of it’s starches.

This is Wild Country Maple Syrup from Lutsen, MN. We incorporate it with some brown sugar and bring it to a quick simmer.

The uncaramelized maple brown sugar sauce is reminiscent of the graininess that brown sugar and maple syrup have when stirred into hot oatmeal. We layer the sauce into the pints.

The starch match made in heaven results in a rich, dense, ultra smooth ice cream with a sweet mapley sauce layered in.

Like to try some? As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this 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 (2/03/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page. Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!