benny – Page 6 – FROZBROZ

November 13, 2014

Pecan Brittle

Who doesn’t like some good brittle? This flavor came solely from my desire to make brittle and to also make a pecan flavor of ice cream. So why not accomplish my hopes and dreams by making pecan brittle and throwing it in some scratch made ice cream?

First came the brittle. My experience making brittle is limited, but it’s not nearly as complicated as one might think. All you need is a candy thermometer, sugar, butter, baking soda, whatever nut suits your fancy and some patience and time. For a great recipe and the one I used, check out this post at My Baking Addiction.

First, the pecans are roasted and salted well. We always roast our own pecans because it’s easy, and they are always better than what you can buy at the store.

Above is a shot of the brittle mix at full boil right before being poured out onto a sheet pan. What I neglected to take a picture of is the brittle being poured out onto the pan, partly because I was pretty occupied with the process and partly because you don’t have much time to spread it out before it cools and hardens. The end is by far the trickiest part of the process, mostly to avoid coating yourself with boiling sugar.

Here, my ice cream fellows, is the finished Pecan brittle with a generous helping of sea salt, just waiting to be thrown into the ice cream bath. The brittle was broken into even smaller pieces than this and adding in to the sweet cream mix right at the end of the churn.

And here is the scoop – our simple sweet cream base chock full of luscious crunchy chunks of pecan brittle.

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 11/14/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

October 30, 2014

Cascade Hops w/Barley Malt Swirl

We’ve often talked about what we do with ice cream to be similar to craft beer. Aside from being passionate fans of craft beer ourselves, there are a lot of parallels between the two. Anyway, its probably a conversation better had over a beer, but needless to say brew-making ingredients have often intrigued us and our fondness for craft beer has led us to exploring the possibilities of some of these in ice cream. Malt, of course has had it’s place for a long time.

This flavor however, marks one of our first full forays into the category and I’m sure we’ll have more to come.

For this flavor I chose the well known Cascade hops as the main flavor component. I was a little concerned that a fresh hop would be too bitter so we went with a steep of dry hops instead. It would be interesting to see the difference between the two but we’ll leave that mystery for future endeavors.

The dried cascade hops are reconstituted in our sweet cream base, and steeped in it during the heating/cooking process. The flavor they impart is very recognizable – perhaps even amplified by the cream. Very fruity and floral, with a bitter finish. Such an interesting little profile for an ice cream flavor especially when balanced by the sugar and fat.

To help balance out the bitter finish of the hop, I wanted to add another sweetness factor. Though barley malt syrup is usually used for subtle flavoring, it’s pretty darn tasty and very sweet – and is the perfect consistency for a swirl in. So we swirled in the barley malt syrup at the end of the churn and it really rounds out the beer flavor.

The scoop is a bright and fruity, yet slightly bitter cascade hops infused ice cream, tinted with malty sweetness from the barley malt syrup. Goes great with a beer! I enjoyed it with a glass of Milwaukee Brewing’s Black Iron Ale.

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 10/31/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

October 16, 2014

Masala Chai Chocolate Chunk

Sometimes our quest for new flavors and combinations blinds us to what is right in front of us. The idea of Chai and dark chocolate was spur of the moment decision while browsing through tea last week. It seemed like a nice fall, warming (yet obviously cooling) flavor that offered the comfort of simplicity and well, chocolate. I also seem to subconsciously create flavors based on the ingredients ability to provide alliteration in the title. So, I snatched up this Masala Chai mix and grabbed a couple of super dark chocolate bars and was off.

The Masala chai is steeped in our sweet cream base, until infused into the ice cream. The tea is strained out after the hot steep with an ultra fine mesh strainer.

The chocolate I chose for this flavor is a super dark organic chocolate bar from Equal Exchange. It’s broken into jagged pieces and thrown into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

The scoop is a delicately spiced Masala Chai ice cream filled with chunks of dark, dark chocolate. Perfect for a fall night.

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 10/17/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

October 2, 2014

Caramel Apple w/ Crushed Peanut

It’s fall. Its apple season. And I’m stuck in the Apple rut. Really not a bad rut to be stuck in if you ask me. There are so many apple varieties to play around with, there are are tons of flavor possibilities depending on the variety you choose. You can get tart, sweet, crunchy or tender, or a mixed bag. Recently we’ve used Zestar apples, and the latest pickup is an old standby in the apple world- Cortland. I chose to use them this week for a play on my favorite caramel apple – the one coated in crushed peanuts.

This flavor doubles up on both the caramel and the apple components. For the ice cream, we made a caramel base, by cooking a simple caramel with sugar and using that as our sweetener. Makes for a great, caramel flavored cream. In addition, some of the caramel is reserved to swirl into the ice cream at the end.

For the apples, we used a combination of roasted apples, as well as a layer of apple jam as a swirl in with the extra caramel..

At the end, we added crushed salted peanuts, for a good crunch.

The scoop is a rich caramel ice cream filled with tart roasted apples decorated with an apple jam and caramel swirl and finished with crunchy crushed peanuts.

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 10/3/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

September 18, 2014

Barley Malt Quark Apple Jam

Let’s face it folks, we’re clinging to summer with every fingernail we’ve got, but it’s dreamy warmth and bright sun is coming to an end. The reality ahead is the second best transition season midwest has to offer – FALL! (sorry Fall nuts, I’m a Spring guy). Back to football, back to school, back to cool nights and bonfires and gourds! Back to the long sleeves and jeans us midwest folk are truly comfortable wearing. (amiright?) Oh, and lest we forget APPLES! Every year we obsess a little about apples and we don’t plan on changing.

For this week’s flavor we chose to create an apple jam. In the past we’ve typically roasted the apples, but I wanted to try something different. These Hoch Orchard Zestar apples were diced up small, and cooked down with sugar and cinnamon. Making a jam allows us to get enough sugar in to displace the water content of the fruit and keeps the fruit from getting icy. The trick is always to get the water out of the fruit but still retain the flavor.

We’ve been experimenting with using different types of malt in ice cream and for this I wanted to try out this barley malt extract we picked up. This barley malt extract is a lot like molasses – rich, slow, and sweet. It provides a nice malt background flavor to the ice cream and pairs perfectly with the apples.

As a third dimension, we added some Quark cheese from Milton Creamery. Quark is a fresh/unripened cow’s milk cheese. Similar to cream cheese but a bit tangier. Just can’t resist the temptation to pair apples with cheese – they work so well together.

The scoop – a malty, tangy quark ice cream filled with ribbons of apple jam. It’s fall dangit!

Look good? 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 9/19/14 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!