Erik – Page 6 – FROZBROZ

November 18, 2014

Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel

Finally, the time is here. What time? Mushroom time!! What we’ve been waiting for, I really don’t know, because my mind is completely blown. We’ve contemplated mushrooms in ice cream before…of course we have, but even after all of the crazy shit that we’ve put into our ice cream, mushrooms still didn’t seem like the best idea. And then a few years ago I was chatting with chef Thomas Boemer, of Corner Table, and he suggested using candy cap mushrooms. And then all of this time passed, and for what? Well, we’ve put out a lot of good flavors since then, but this candy cap thing…this should have happened sooner. And since we’re giving thanks next week, we thought we’d make this one a little more festive. You know, with pumpkin. Besides, after just smelling the candy caps, pumpkin is surely going to be a winning combo. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel.

These are dried candy cap mushrooms. Right out of the gate they smell like earthy maple syrup. I’m already freaking out with excitement. For the ice cream, we grind the dried mushrooms and mix it into our sweet cream base. The base is cooked, aka pasteurized, steeped, cooled, and then the mushrooms are strained out with a fine mesh strainer. During the steeping process, the sweet earthy aromas of the candy caps are flying out of the pot. Seriously amazing! The base is given a generous salting and is ready for the churn.

Next, the pumpkin caramel. Like everything we do, it’s done from scratch. We start with a whole pie pumpkin, clean it, and roast it. The roasted pumpkin mash is then incorporated with the cream we will use for our caramel. For the caramel, first, we caramelize the sugar. Once our sugar has turned a deep amber color and begins smoking, we add our pumpkin cream. Our pumpkin caramel is finished with sea salt, is cooled, and is ready to be layered into our pints.

Candy Cap Mushroom with Pumpkin Caramel. Finally, the time is here. And, to one of many things we’ll be giving thanks to next week, thanks chef Thomas for the hot tip.

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 11/21/14 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!

November 5, 2014

Orange Blossom Green Tea with Pomegranate Syrup

For many people, fall is tea season. Well, for tea drinkers it’s probably always tea season, but for my pregnant wife at least, the cooler temperatures bring a chill that only a cup of tea can warm. So why not put a little of that warmth into our ice cream? And well, we actually did that exact thing a couple of weeks back with our Masala Chai Chocolate Chunk. This week, we’re doing it again. With such endless varieties of tea to work with, we might be steeping loose leaf tea all winter. Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Orange Blossom Green Tea with Pomegranate Syrup.

This is loose leaf organic orange blossom green tea. The brew consists of jasmine, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, rose, orange and lime. That is a lot of stuff, and guaranteed, steeping it in our ice cream is going to bring out all of those flavors and aromas. Most teas require a certain temperature for steeping, which allows maximum flavor infusion, yet keeps it tasting subtle and fresh. This temperature range is usually between 175-190 degrees Fahrenheit, and that’s just too hot for our ice cream base, so to give our ice cream proper justice, we’re going steep the tea in our cream and milk before making our ice cream base. After the steep, we strain out the tea, make our ice cream base, cook it, cool it, and it is ready to be churned.

Next, the pomegranate syrup. I wanted a tart juice to contrast the smooth orange blossom tea infusion, and walking through the isle of juices, pomegranate spoke to me. It said, “Take me. Take me to that place. Take me to ice cream town.” It was meant to be, I guess. This is organic cold pressed 100% pomegranate juice. It’s tart, but not overpoweringly tart, like say cranberry juice would be. For the syrup, we reduced the pomegranate juice down a little to concentrate flavors and then add cane sugar. The result is a pomegranate syrup having the consistency of honey. So pretty much, this is pomegranate honey. It gets swirled into the ice cream before packaging.

Orange Blossom Green Tea with Pomegranate Syrup – ice cream to warm you.

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 11/7/14 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!

October 22, 2014

Red Wine with Poached Pears

In the fall, as the evening temperatures start getting colder and colder, I find myself craving a glass of red wine verses a frosty cold brew. So this week, I decided to make a red wine ice cream, and to add to the fall flare, poached pears. So let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Red Wine with Poached Pears.

Oddly, we’ve never made a straight up red wine ice cream before, so this is what I set out to do. I chose this really easy drinking Zinfandel that is loaded with dark berry flavors. The wine is boiled hard and reduced to almost nothing before we add it into our organic cane sugar base. The base is cooled and ready for the churn.

For the pears, I diced to poach them. I knew this route would give me full control over their flavor. Instead of the classic wine poached pears with spices, I went back to a very similar flavor pairing I did a few years back – Pear Mascarpone with Prosciutto and Red Wine Caramel. The combo of the prosciutto and pears with the red wine was fantastic. In my head: pork products in ice cream commence. To start with I picked up some of these Oregon grown Concorde Pears from the Seward Coop. They are firm like a d’anjou pear, but quite a bit sweeter. They get peeled and quartered before being poached in a bath of simple syrup, peppercorns, and here it comes…wait for it…bacon! After the pears are poached, they are dehydrated in the oven for a while so they’re not icy when frozen. Cause no one wants icy fruit in their ice cream, right? Right! The pears are diced and tossed into the red wine ice cream at the end of the churn.

A delectable red wine ice cream with bacon poached pears. It’s ice cream for those cool fall evenings.

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 10/24/14 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 8, 2014

Toasted Oak with Sweetland Orchard Hard Cider Syrup

Grilling/barbecuing is a favorite of ours, in particular, the technique of smoking, which got me thinking about trying to infuse wood flavor into our ice cream. You know, think of that cedar smell when you’re in a sauna. I wanted to get that into the ice cream, but not cedar. In particular, oak. I just wasn’t sure about using any ordinary oak gathered from the woods to put in our ice cream, so I did a little research, and of course, they sell prepared oak chips and shavings at the home brew store for brewing beer and wine. !!! Now that I have my oak, the obvious pairing was wine, but hard ciders are big right now, and tis the season for cider, so I wondered if there were any hard ciders that got aged in an oak barrels. But more importantly, can I find a locally produced cider? And I did, which brings me to this week’s flavor – Toasted Oak with Sweetland Orchard Hard Cider Syrup

I stopped into Northern Brewer and their helpful staff walked me through their wood chip/shaving varieties, and I decided to go with a medium toasted oak chip. I didn’t want to overpower the ice cream, but also didn’t want it to be virtually unrecognizable. My thought was to steep the oak chips in our ice cream base (as we do with pretty much everything) in hopes that I would achieve that toasted oak taste, as it smells, in the actual cream. It worked! And by worked, I mean worked. Basically it worked. Really well. Better than expected. After the steep, the chips get strained out, the base is cooled and is ready for the churn.

Next, cider syrup! First and foremost, I wanted to find a locally produced hard cider, but I was hoping to find one that was fermented in oak barrels. I found this Sweetland Orchards Northern Spy Hard Cider, from Webster, MN, but couldn’t find any info on their fermentation process. The cider itself though was really interesting and delicious. It is a dry cider, and as the bottle suggests, a champagne cider. It was exactly that. It had both cider and champagne qualities, which in my mind, was perfect for this flavor pairing. For the syrup, I reduced the cider down by a half to two thirds to condense flavors, then added sugar to make a syrup. The syrup is swirled into the ice cream before packaging.

The end result is a toasted oak ice cream that is almost caramelly layered with a hard cider syrup AKA apple wine. It’s a unique and delicious combo, and one that you’ll only find here.

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 10/10/14 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 24, 2014

Ginger Snap Ground Cherry

A few weeks back we got a nice delivery of ground cherries from our friends at Bossy Acres. Ground cherries are one of those unique fruits that are around once a year and have a flavor like nothing else. For this very reason, we wanted to treat all of our CSI members to the experience of tasting them in ice cream. For our members, they will be receiving a pint of our Buttermilk Ground Cherry this month as part of their share, but per a request from my wife, I decided to use some of the extra ground cherries to make a new flavor for our weekly give-a-way – Ginger Snap Ground Cherry. Let’s get started…

Ginger snaps bring back memories of going to my grandmother’s house. She always had a bag in the cupboard and I always sat at the kitchen table eating ginger snaps and milk when I visited…which was often. It’s actually been about that long since I’ve eaten one, so when my wife suggested this flavor, I was happy to purchase that bag of nostalgia. Don’t knock me for buying these pre-made ginger snaps, because they’re exactly what Grams had in her cupboard, and if they were good enough for Grams, then they’re good enough for FrozBroz. The ginger snaps get broken up and tossed into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

Not just any ice cream base though. This is a brown sugar sweetened base with vanilla and touch of plain yogurt, giving it a caramel-esque quality and silky texture. Now for the jam…

This is the real deal…Bossy Acres ground cherries. If you’re not familiar, ground cherries are like a cross between a grape and a tomato. They grow in the same vine-like structure as a tomato plant and develop a similar exterior wrapper as a tomatillo. They’re called ground cherries, because when they are ripe, they fall off the plant to the ground. Their paper wrapper protects the fruit inside. And oh man, the fruit inside is soooooo tasty. But these little guys are a labor of love; not only does it require a lot of time for Bossy Acres to pick pounds and pounds of these things, but it takes us hours and hours to peel and clean pounds and pounds of these things. It’s something you won’t find any other ice cream companies working with. For the ice cream, we simply simmer down the ground cherries with sugar to preserve their flavor. It’s a simple jam that packs a lot of unique flavor. The jam gets layered into the ice cream before packaging.

This is it. Not just it. Ginger Snap Ground Cherry! A brown sugar vanilla ice cream layered with ground cherry jam and packed with ginger snap cookie crunch. It’s a request we couldn’t pass up.

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 9/26/14 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!