Twin Cities Craft Ice Cream – Page 4

November 15, 2012

Roasted Pecan w/ Pumpkin Caramel

Since we exhausted some of the most traditional Holiday flavors last year, we’re left with the challenge of digging deeper and looking at traditions of other cultures or finding new interpretations of the classics we love. A few years ago I experienced my first pumpkin pecan pie, and had my mind blown. Combine two favorites into one you say? Precisely. However, instead of making an ice cream full of pecan chunks, we chose to make a pecan flavored ice cream and ripple it with pumpkin caramel in hopes the two flavors would work in harmony rather than fight each other for the front seat.

Since we made the black walnut flavor a few weeks back, we’ve been fascinated about ice cream flavors steeped with nuts because the texture and flavors are so intense. The fat of the nut releases and combines with the cream, which brings the nut’s inherent flavor along with it. What you get is an ice cream that tastes exactly like the nut, but without any of the protein actually in the final product. We followed suit for this flavor and chose to make a steeped roasted pecan ice cream that screamed pecan, but with none of the chunks. Yeah, I love the chunks too – but its all about different and new experiences and we’re in love with this process.

First the pumpkin caramel. Step one – roast and puree pumpkin. No canned pumpkin here. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Thanks to a lovely blog we ran across in the past few months, the Vintage Mixer, we found a great recipe for pumpkin caramel and adapted it to work in this flavor. The pureed pumpkin is mixed with nutmeg, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and salt, and reduced with sugar and maple syrup.

We omitted the pumpkin seeds from our version in order to keep the ice cream free of rough terrain. Man its good!

Then we ground the roasted pecans into a powder and steeped them hot in the cream mix. Once they get their full steep on, we strain the chunks out to keep a smooth consistency.

Lastly, the pumpkin caramel is put down in layers as the ice cream goes into the pint.

The end result is a incredibly flavorful ice cream that screams traditional holiday flavors all bundled up into one. The pumpkin jumps out first and then is finished off nicely by a instantly recognizable roasted pecan flavor.

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 11/16 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!

November 1, 2012

White Russian

Yes, unfortunately this flavor comes the day after halloween – but apropos nonetheless, in honor of one of our favorite movies The Big Lebowski and those who chose to don the threads of Walter Sobchak, Donny or maybe even the Dude himself as their Halloween costume of choice. If nothing else, this flavor would be perfect for nursing back into working condition those who imbibed in true halloween fashion.

Alcohol is always a tricky one with ice cream because its low freezing temperature messes with the process of the ice cream freezing properly. Conversely, its no fun to make an ice cream based on a drink and not have any alcohol in it. We found a happy middle ground by leaving out the (flavorless) vodka and sticking with a clean cream base and Kahlua as the main alcohol/flavor component.

In order to get it to a point where it was present in the flavor but not wrecking the consistency we chose to use it 2 separate ways. The star would be a caramel (as we are wont to do) made by reducing the Kahlua with sugar into a thick syrup and then thinning it out a bit with some straight Kahlua to get the full flavor with the alcohol.

Once finished with the caramel, we moved onto the base. To represent the cocktail as closely as possible, we went with a straight cream base and used confectioner’s sugar to provide an extra clean sweetness, and added a little more Kahlua to the mix to shine through ever so subtly without ruining the cream’s ability to freeze.

To finish off, a Filbert of course. Since any true White Russian isn’t served without its hazelnut garnish, we threw in a handful of crushed hazelnuts to provide a little crunch and accent to the sweetness of the cream.

The end result was a perfect match – a simple White Russian cocktail flavored ice cream striped with gooey Kahlua caramel and peppered ever so lightly with a filbert garnish.
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 11/2 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 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 20, 2012

Ground Cherry Chevre Charred Vanilla

Ground Cherries have been a late summer staple in my house for years, and seem to be getting more popular every year. They are similar to a tomatillo with makeup and husk, but have a caramal sweetness to them with just a bit of sourness. I love to use them as a pizza topping with speck or prosciutto, but they work great in desserts as well.

For the first attempt at brining them into the ice cream world, I chose to reduce them down into a simple, unaltered jam. The ground cherries were husked (which is a painstaking task for how small they are), pureed, and reduced with organic sugar into a bright yellow jam – the smell of the jam is incredible – a combination of baking bread and caramel – and the taste is very bright, and somewhat honey like, but with a tart edge and a bit of nuttiness gained from the tiny seeds.

To pair with the sweetness of the jam, I went with a Chevre base using Chevre from Donnay farms and comined it with the last of the charred vanilla bean leftover from earlier this summer.

The powdered charred vanilla goes straight into the chevre base and works harmoniously with the tanginess of the chevre. To really make the Ground Cherry Jam sing, I slightly reduced the sugar content of the ice cream base.

At the end, the ground cherry jam was swirled into the base to create a nicely balanced ice cream – dense, tangy chevre flecked with hints of charred vanilla bean, and rippled with a butterscotch like ground cherry jam.

A bright, and incredibly rich nod to the end of summer.

And that’s that. 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 9/21 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!