Minneapolis Craft Ice Cream – Page 2

July 11, 2013

Dark Chocolate Strawberry Pistachio

Since local berries are one of our absolute favorite things of summer, its not uncommon for us to do multiple flavors with the same berry. Especially strawberries. When I began thinking about a new flavor concept for using strawberries, I chose to go the selfish route this time and do exactly what I wanted to eat. I knew pistachio was going to be one of the components. I toiled on different sugars or a combination thereof, as well as different forms of cream combinations (sour cream, cream cheese, goat cheese, goat milk, etc – and then it hit me. We’ve only done two (!) flavors previous to this with a chocolate base, (3X Chocolate, Georgia Walnut) and we’ve seriously neglected the chocolate lovers, myself being one of them. So that was that. Dark Chocolate, Strawberries and Pistachios.

The chocolate base has a good concentration of cocoa – not quite as much as our 3x chocolate since there needed to be balance with the other flavors, however its still a nice dark chocolate ice cream.

The gorgeous local strawberries were made into a nice thick syrup to be woven throughout the base.

The shelled, roasted and salted pistachios were thrown in during the churn to give a big salty crunch. The final product is a dark chocolate ice cream, rippled with fresh strawberry syrup and studded with salted crunchy pistachios.

Want to try it? 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 7/12/13 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!

July 4, 2013

Amarula

This is usually the time of year that we start rolling out all things local, since berries are finally coming around here in Minnesota. But this week, we are featuring a flavor that utilizes a fruit from across the Atlantic and then used to make a cream liqueur called Amarula. We were just recently introduced to Amarula by a couple who was interested in having us make it into an ice cream for their wedding. After making the flavor for their tasting, we decided it was definitely one we needed to release to the masses. This one is for you Shira and Bill! Let’s get started with this weeks flavor: Amarula…

Amarula Cream Liqueur. Made with Marula fruit, only grown in Africa, and said to be tart, sweet, refreshing, with a “guava-like” taste. The Marula fruits are squeezed of their juices, de-seeded, and then fermented into a wine. The wine is then distilled twice and cream is added. The result is a unique cream liqueur that is caramely like an Irish Cream, but has a hit of sweet/tart fruit to it.

To get the Amarula into the ice cream we unfortunatly need to remove the alcohol from the liqueur. To do this, we boil the liqueur on the stovetop and reduce slightly. The reduction is added straight into our organic cane sugar ice cream base and given a genrous salting before the churn.

Amarula ice cream y’all! It has an ultra creamy texture, similar to our Oat with Maple Brown Sugar, accompanied by notes of tropical fruit and salty caramel.

Want to try it? 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 7/5/13 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!

May 23, 2013

Cherry Torte

Birthdays often carry countless traditions. Over time, some of those traditions fade away, but for my father-in-law, there is one birthday tradtion that has stayed with him since his early childhood. After the first taste of his mother’s cherry torte, it was a request that never faded when his birthday came around. Now years later Charlotte, his mother, has passed away, but my mother-in-law graciously makes Charlotte’s cherry torte recipe, and my father-in-law reluctantly shares his birthday tradition with the rest of his family. So this week, one week after my father-in-law’s birthday, I set out to deconstuct and recreate Charlotte’s cherry torte in FrozBroz fashion; ice cream style! Let’s get started with this week’s flavor: Cherry Torte.

Contrary to my wife’s family’s belief, I actually can reproduce Charlotte’s short bread crust with flawless results. This crust is a key component as it adds texture, nuttiness, and the integral buttery flavor of traditional shortbread. To achieve this, sugar, butter and flour are mixed together before adding crushed pecans, at which point the dough is pressed into a pan and baked. After cooling, the crust is broken up into chunks, and for the ice cream, we toss the chunkers in toward the end of the churn.

Cream Cheese! The second layer of the torte consists of cream cheese whipped with sugar, vanilla, and whipped cream. For the ice cream, we incorpoarte the cheese and vanilla into our pure cane sugar ice cream base during the cooking process. This sets the stage for an ultra rich cream cheese ice cream base.

Next, the cherry topper! This is where I’m going to break tradtion a little. At this point, the torte could essentially be constructed with a can of sweet cheeries in heavy syrup; crust chunkers fill the bottom of a pan, the cream cheese/whipped cream is spread on, and the canned cherries in heavy syrup top it all off. I made the desision to go with tart cherries in water for the ice cream. I wanted the cherries to contrast the sweet ice cream by adding that tart twist. We puree the tart cherries and water, then simmer down with a bit of cane sugar on the stove top until the cherries reach proper viscosity. The cherry jam is still sweet, but brings that element of tartness. We layer it into the pints during packaging.

The result is a rich cream cheese ice cream studded with pecan shortbread chunkers and layered with a tart cherry syrup jam. This is a FrozBroz tradition that is destined to never fade. Happy Birthday Dan!

Want to try it? 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 5/24/13 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!

May 16, 2013

Fenugreek Praline Pecan

The first time I considered Fenugreek as an ice cream flavor was after trying some gouda cheese with fenugreek seeds in it; amazed at the sweetness and maple like flavor the fenugreek added. After some deliberation, and some more research, I discovered that fenugreek is one of the main flavor components of fake maple syrup. My curiosity was piqued, and I was sold. To round the flavor out, I chose to add caramel coated pecans to the mix and make it our own spiced up version of praline pecan.

First the pecans..

To make praline pecans we first roast and salt whole pecans and smash them into smaller, more bite friendly sized pieces.

Then we make a simple caramel that is boiled to a “hard crack”, so it doesn’t pull your fillings out when you bite into it, but instead as a crunch. The pecans are added in at the very end and then cooled to keep the caramel coating.

After the pecans are cooled they are broken out of their caramel sheath and end up with a perfect caramel praline coat.

For the ice cream, we steep the Fenugreek seeds in our organic cane sugar base and strain them out before the churn.

What we get is a spiced maple kissed ice cream studded with crunchy praline pecans.
Want to try it? 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 5/17/13 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!

May 9, 2013

Sweet Pea Almond with Rye Caramel

Springtime! It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming! Right? It is coming, right? Finally, it is actually here; we think. Soon, the fruits of Spring will start showing their colors, and our flavors will start reflecting all that is seasonable in Minnesota. In preparation for such a late start this year, our friends over at Bossy Acres have been busy in their new greenhouse. Last year Bossy was accepted into the Organic Field School incubator program, giving them access to more land, training, and equipment usage. As part of the program, they are allowed to use a portion of the Gardens of Eagen greenhouse, which gives them a big head start with these Minnesota winters. Such a head start, that it’s enough to inspire this weeks flavor: Sweet Pea Almond with Rye Caramel.

We are so itching to get on to Spring and Summer flavors, and we can’t tell you how happy we were to get a message from the great farmers at Bossy Acres letting us know they had pea shoots for us. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Just look at how gorgeous they are. If you haven’t had them, you best find out the next time Bossy is selling at the market, because these pea shoots epitomize Spring with their snappy yet tender and sweet, earthy pea flavor. This is where it all begins…

For the ice cream, I decided I wanted to infuse the sweet pea and almond flavor into our ice cream base. To get the most flavor out of the almonds, we first slow roasted them in the oven and gave them a quick pulse in the food processor.

The pea shoots and crushed almonds are steeped in our cane sugar base, then strained through a fine mesh strainer. The sweet pea and almond-infused ice cream base is ready for churning.

The final component of this week’s flavor is a rye caramel. As soon as I heard “pea shoots”, I immediately had visions of creamed peas on rye bread. Ice cream translation: sweet pea ice cream with rye caramel. For the caramel, we first ground whole rye berries and steeped them in our cream. We then caramelized granulated sugar and made a traditional caramel adding in our rye infused cream after caramelization. The result is a light and subtle rye flavored caramel that gets layered into the sweet pea almond ice cream during packaging.

Springtime! It’s here y’all! At least it’s here in our Sweet Pea Almond with Rye Caramel ice cream with Bossy Acres pea shoots!

Want to try it? 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 5/10 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!