benny – Page 9 – FROZBROZ

April 17, 2014

Toast and Blueberry Bourbon Sage Jam (Serious Jam)

Once in awhile we stumble onto something that makes all of our experimentation worth it. Ever since we’ve befriended our pal Heidi Skoog of Serious Jam, I’ve wanted to do a Toast and Jam flavor to pair with one of her wonderful jams. The challenge was figuring out a way to make ice cream taste like toast without having soggy toast floating in it.

I had originally planned to make croutons like we do with many other baked goods, but I wasn’t convinced croutons from bread would hold up in the ice cream long enough. The “ah-ha” moment came as I pulled the toast from the toaster. When I was a little kid, my mom would save dark or burnt toast by scraping the dark spots off with a knife. Why not just scrape the toasted layer off the bread?

And that is exactly what I did. Using some fantastic sourdough from the New French bakery located right in our neighborhood, I made a bunch of dark toast and scraped the toasted strata off into the sweet cream base. The toasted bits all steeped in the base as it heated, and the toast flavor that is produced is nothing short of spectacular.

But before we get all caught up in the idea of how much fun toast ice cream is, let’s talk seriously for a moment about Serious Jam. For this flavor I used one of Heidi’s banner jars, Blueberry Bourbon Sage jam. It is a fantastic, classically made jam full of ripe blueberries – singing with hints of sage and bourbon. Every one of her jams is a winner. We’re lucky enough to share a kitchen with her so we’ve become a little spoiled when it comes to jam. Look for her to be selling right beside us in the kitchen at upcoming sales.

Back to the matter at hand, Toast and (Serious) Blueberry Bourbon Sage Jam ice cream. I was literally jumping up and down at the result – the ice cream is brimming with toast flavor, and makes the perfect match for some very Serious jam.

Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of this fantastic, 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. Winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 4/18/14 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!

April 3, 2014

Black Sesame w/ Yuzu Honey

Ice cream in foreign countries – especially in Asia and South America – is, and has been far more adventurous than what we are used to eating here in the States. Black Sesame ice cream is essentially the Vanilla ice cream to Asian culture and deservedly so – the depth of flavor is intense, savory and sweet all at the same time. It also pairs fantastically with citrus, and provided us the opportunity to utilize Yuzu for the first time. It went something like this..

Yuzu is a citrus fruit native to East Asia that resembles across between grapefruit and orange – wonderfully acidic and zippy. Its nearly impossible to find fresh here, so we used Yuzu juice procured from our favorite, United Noodle. We combined some of the Yuzu juice with some local Ames farm honey to swirl into the mix.

The black sesame ice cream base is a relatively straighforward process. The sesame seeds are toasted in a pan and then ground fine. The ground sesame goes straight into our sweet cream and organic cane sugar base and steeped to bring out the flavor.

Once the steeping process is complete – the cream is churned and the Yuzu honey is swirled in at the end. And this is the point when it’s popularity abroad all makes sense.

The black sesame ice cream hearkens slightly of peanut butter but whisks you off quickly to a land all its own. The pockets of Yuzu honey offer a bright, sweet yet slightly sour contrast among it all.
Like to try some? You can be one of two lucky winners of this fantastic, 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. Winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 4/4/14 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!

March 20, 2014

Oat Rum Raisin w/ Cinnamon Caramel

Ever since we originally created the Oat w/Maple Brown Sugar, we’ve been enamored with how silky ice cream gets from steeping with oats. Not to mention the incredible oat flavor. I wanted to use that base to create a flavor as a play on the oatmeal raisin cookie. It wasn’t until right at the end that the thought occurred to me – “I should probably soak these raisins in rum”. Man, am I glad I did. So now you have our play on both rum raisin and the oatmeal raisin cookie. Why not combine them?

First the base. These fine organic rolled oats are combined with our brown sugar ice cream base and put through a warm steeping process. During the steep, the starch is extracted from the oats much like what happens when you make oatmeal. That starch is what gives the oatmeal its sticky consistency – the more you cook the oats, the more of that starch comes out and the stickier the oatmeal gets. We like the starch. The starch in ice cream is a natural stabilizer and gives the ice cream an extra silky texture. The oats are strained out after the steep is complete.

The caramel is a straightforward sugar based caramel, infused with cinnamon when the cream is added at the end. The cream helps keep the caramel a light sauce instead of something something that pulls your teeth out of your head while you try to eat it.

Here comes the curveball. The original idea was to simply add raisins to the mix to complete the idea of the oatmeal raisin cookie. Instead they were soaked in rum overnight, as we’d do for a straight rum raisin. The raisins soak up the rum and turn into boozey candy that gets thrown into the ice cream right at the end of the churn.

This scoop a fantastic representation of the oatmeal raisin cookie with a cinnamon caramel holding it all together amongst a deluge of rum raisins.
Like to try some? 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. Winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 3/21/14 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!

Don’t forget about our pint sale,TONIGHT Thursday March 20, 2014. Click HERE for details.

March 6, 2014January 29, 2024

Black Sea Salt Malt

We talk a lot, maybe too much, about where our inspiration comes from – but its a huge part of what we do and is something we cherish and welcome. I often find the path and the journey is equally, and sometimes more rewarding than the end result and not just in making ice cream.

In the case of this flavor, the inspiration came from a book (and a friend). “And In Their Passing, A Darkness: The Salt Machine”, written by my pal Jeff Smieding, is a fantastic piece of fiction and one I highly recommend. Jeff had asked me to create a flavor for his upcoming book launch party and wondered if we might somehow involved salt since it is an overarching theme in his book. We had just procured some barley malt with the intention of developing a few malt themed flavors – and as fate would have it Jeff happens to brew his own beer once in awhile so we arrived at the genesis. Black Sea Salt Malt.

The foundation of the ice cream is our regular organic cane sugar base flavored with vanilla bean and a heap of this barley malt powder to give it that classic “malt” flavor.

Then comes the salt. For a long time, I’ve wanted to create a flavor with course salt as an add-in – to give crunchy bursts of salty goodness. I chose this course black sea salt because it dissolves more slowly than its counterparts and would provide the textural element that would last a bit longer. It also looks fantastic and fits the darkness element of Jeff’s book quite nicely.

The ice cream base is churned and the salt added in at the very last minute. As it churns for just a few seconds more – the smaller salt crystals dissolve into little rivers of black and grey swirled throughout the ice cream.

I am always motivated and excited by ice cream flavors that play tricks on the mind and the palate, both in color as well as with texture and flavor. This particular flavor looks almost like chocolate chip, but obviously tastes nothing like it.

The ice cream really is striking if I do say so myself. A malted vanilla base speckled with crystals of black sea salt that provide occasional explosions of salt among the sweetness.

Check out Jeff’s book here and if you feel so inclined, go enjoy a local brew and see Jeff read from his book in person at the book launch Wednesday March 19 at Harriet Brewing.
Like to try some? 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. Winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 3/7/14 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!

February 20, 2014

Turmeric Honey

When our favorite grocery store, Seward Co-op started carrying fresh turmeric root this winter, I jumped at the opportunity to create a flavor with it. Turmeric root has a more unique and pronounced flavor than the powder variety. Its flavor is somewhat ginger like, but still very much it’s own profile. It also has the ability to color almost anything it comes in contact with, neon yellow. Maybe even more poignant – Turmeric is believed to provide a plethora of health benefits that range from cancer and alzheimer’s prevention to detoxifying your liver, boosting your immune system and relieving arthritis. Considering all that, I suppose you could say this is our first homeopathic flavor? Won’t go that far. Either way, it made for an interesting journey and result.

To start, the turmeric root is peeled, minced and blended into our classic cane sugar base. It is steeped in the base to bring out the flavor and color.

You can see from left to right how the color of the ice cream transforms as the steeping process draws the color out of the root. Once the steeping process is complete, the base is strained to remove all of the turmeric root pieces and to provide a nice smooth consistency.

To add some dimension to the flavor, we used some of this local honey produced by our friend Britt. It has a fruity element to it which plays very nicely with the turmeric.

The base is churned and swirled with the honey at the end.

Results? A neon yellow colored Turmeric ice cream with fruity local Minneapolis honey that rounds out the sweetness and ends as one of the more unique flavor profiles of any ice cream we’ve created. It truly plays tricks on your brain as you try to divide the line between what you think it should taste like and what it actually does taste like. Its one of those flavors I keep going back for more because of that very fact. It’s just fun.

Like to try some? 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 2/21/14 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!

And don’t forget about our Spring CSI subscription – if you’re offered in reserving pints on a monthly basis between March and May 2014, go here for more info.

Finally – we have another pint sale coming up in two weeks on March 1st – see here for details on menu, and timing, etc.