Apples – FROZBROZ

October 7, 2015

Apple Oat and Brown Sugar

Our journey down apple road continues this week. This time around, we will be using a newer technique, to us, to get the apples in the ice cream. A technique that allows us to create a creamy ice cream flavored with what ever fruit or vegetable we’re using, while eliminating any iciness due to moisture content. It’s something we’ve been playing around with a lot lately, and so far has been very successful. And to bring the creaminess up another level, I’m using rolled oats. I’ll explain how that works later, but for now, lets get this week’s flavor underway – Apple Oat and Brown Sugar

To begin, we start with regent apples from Hoch Orchard here in Minnesota. Everyone has their apple varieties of choice for eating and cooking. For me, the regent offers great apple flavor and is versatile for both good eating and cooking. Here, I want extract all of the apple flavor I can get, starting by breaking down the apples into two different parts – cider and pulp. First things first, we peel and core our apples. The apples are pureed in a blender until smooth. We then strain the puree through a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl. The cider is pushed through, and the solids are drained until the pulp is nearly dry. Getting as much of the moisture content out is important, unless you’re making a sorbet. Moisture is ice creams enemy.

The pressed pulp is spread thin on a sheet pan lined with a silpat baking mat. Baked at a low temperature to eliminate as much residual moisture. The baked apple pulp is reserved for the ice cream base.

Next, we use the reserved apple cider. With the addition of a very small amount of cane sugar, the cider is brought to a boil and reduced into a thick syrup. This syrup is ultra concentrated with apple flavor. The syrup is added into our brown sugar ice cream base, which I used for this flavor to bring out some deeper caramel tones. As I mentioned in my opening, I wanted to really bring on the creaminess with this flavor by infusing with rolled oats. The oats are added into the base before pasteurizing. During the cooking process, the oats release their starches into the base making for an ultra silky texture. The oats are strained out after the base is pasteurized and the reserved baked pulp is whisked in. After cooling, the base is ready to churn.

The road to apple ice cream stops here. A brown sugar ice cream made ultra creamy with an oat and apple infusion. Mission accomplished!

Apple Oat and Brown Sugar

Apple Prep:
4 Apples, Regent, peeled, quartered, and cored
2 teaspoons sugar

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Rolled Oats
2 Eggs
3/4 teaspoon Sea salt
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
reserved apple syrup and paste

Instructions:

1. Prepare Apples: Using a blender or food processor, puree apples. Place a fine mesh strainer over a bowl, and pour apple puree into strainer. Using a spatula, press all of the liquid through the strainer until all that is remaining is paste. Reserve paste. Pour the apple liquid from the bowl into a medium sauce pan with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Over medium high reduce the liquid, stirring constantly so it doesn’t burn to the bottom of pan. Continue reduction, until a thick apple syrup forms. Remove from heat and reserve apple syrup.

2. Bake Apple Pastea: Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Spread apple paste in a thin layer onto a sheet pan lined with a silpat or other baking mat. Bake for 20-25 minutes until relatively dry. Remove from the oven and reserve for ice cream base.

3. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add brown sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk until ingredients are combined. Add rolled oats and whisk to combine.

4. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat, and strain through a fine mesh strainer. Add both apple syrup and apple paste to strained ice cream base and whisk vigorously until combined. Cool ice cream base to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Cover base, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

5. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Store ice cream in air tight container in freezer until chow time.

*Yields approximately 2.5 pints

If you’d rather not make it, 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 10/9/15 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally in Minneapolis. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!

October 1, 2015January 29, 2024

Smoked Apple

Long before our ice cream days began, us Broz spent much of our time scheming about BBQ and hanging around grills and smokers. To this day we both remain grilling fanatics and our love for all things cooked over a fire often finds its way into our flavor development. Every year when apple season rolls around we challenge ourselves to come up with new ways to incorporate apples into our ice cream. This week’s flavor found us back at the smoker – stripping things down to our basic first apple flavor but adding one new dimension – applewood smoke.

These gorgeous local honeycrisp apples (my personal favorite variety) are diced, tossed in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and then smoked over applewood for around an hour. This process closely resembles our typical roasting of the apples for incorporating into ice cream, but we’ve added the smoke to the process which gives them a very distinct, smokey flavor.

Since we’re already using smoked apples, it only seemed right to flavor the cream with our signature charred vanilla. The vanilla beans are also smoked over applewood until crispy and then ground whole into a fine powder and infused into the cream. These work as a great substitute for vanilla in any recipe.

The scoop is nothing short of harmonious, especially if you’re a fan of apples, vanilla and things cooked over open fire. An in-your- face charred vanilla ice cream decorated with chewy chunks of smoked honeycrisp apples.

Smoked Apple Ice Cream Recipe

(makes approx 1-1/2 quarts)

Ingredients:

2C Heavy Cream
1C Milk (use any fat percentage you prefer – higher lends to a creamier base)
2 Eggs
3/4C Sugar
1 Whole Charred Vanilla bean, ground
2 apples cored, peeled and diced into 1/2″ chunks
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Prep apples and vanilla:

Preheat grill/smoker to 250-275 degrees

Mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon and butter in a bowl and toss apples in mixture until well coated. Spread the apples out on sheet pan in one layer and place over indirect heat in smoker/grill. Place vanilla beans also over the indirect heat. Smoke apples and vanilla for approximately one hour until apples have shrunk but not completely dried up. Vanilla beans will dry out and become hard and brittle. Let apples cool, then set aside and chill until ready to add into ice cream. Set vanilla beans aside until you are ready to make ice cream base.

When you’re ready to make the ice cream base, grind the beans in a coffee or spice grinder until they are a fine powder. Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add charred vanilla powder and sugar to eggs and whisk until all are combined well. Add cream, milk, salt and whisk again until all are fully incorporated. Place the ice cream mix in heavy pot and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously. Heat ice cream mixture until temperature reaches 165 degrees. Remove from heat. Cool the ice cream base to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Once cool, place ice cream mix in a container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add smoked apples in during the last 5 minutes of churning the ice cream. Freeze in a tightly covered container for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait. Then, enjoy!

*Yields approximately 2.5 pints of ice cream.

If you’d rather not make it, 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 10/2/15 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally in Minneapolis. 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!