Erik – FROZBROZ

October 22, 2015

Buttered Toast and Honey

As a kid, I would occasionally eat heavily buttered toast with honey drizzled over the top. It was usually a breakfast thingy, but I know I enjoyed a few buttered honey toasts for an after school snack session. It was one of those things that always tasted better with white bread too. It’s been awhile since I’ve had this toast, but my food nostalgia always beckons the question, would it make a worthy ice cream flavor? The answer is usually yes, and in this case…YES! This week’s flavor – Buttered Toast and Honey

I remember having a rather large portion of butter on this toast, something more like a light frosting that melted away into the bread. For the ice cream, I wanted to use brown butter to highlight the flavor of the butter, but also to accentuate it’s nuttiness that resembles the flavor of the toasted bread. The brown butter gets emulsified into our organic cane sugar ice cream base.

For the toasts, I’m using french bread: sliced, toasted, and then scraped, with the back of a knife, into the ice cream base. The toast crumbs steep in the base during pasteurization, and are then strained out with a fine mesh strainer. The base is cooled and is ready to churn.

Lastly, honey to round out the mission. Minnesota honey! The Beez Kneez honey! Do we need to say more? If you’ve never heard of The Beez Kneez, just click here to learn more about their wonderful honey. It’s swirled straight into the ice cream after the churn.

Buttered Toast and Honey ice cream…just like being a kid again.

Buttered Toast and Honey

2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup cane sugar
2 Eggs
2-3 slices French Bread
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 teaspoon Sea salt

1/4 cup Honey

Instructions:

1. Prepare the brown butter: Place the butter in a saute pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Continue over high heat until butter begins to brown. Remove from heat and reserve brown butter. If browning gets away from you and starts to look too dark, pour into a glass bowl immediately to stop the browning process.

2. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk and sea salt. Whisk until ingredients are combined.

4. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 110-120 degrees. Remove from heat. Take one cup of the warmed ice cream base out and place in blender. With blender running, slowly add the brown butter until emulsified. Pour emulsified mixture back into sauce pan with ice cream base.

Toast French bread – medium to dark toasting. Using a butter knife, scrape the toast over the ice cream base, so that all of the toasted crumbs fall off into base. Resume whisking or stirring base continuously over medium heat until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat, and allow to steep for 10 minutes. Strain base through a fine mesh strainer. 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. Swirl in honey during packaging. 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 10/23/15 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 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 4, 2015

Coconut Popcorn

As a first grader, my son takes turns with his classmates bringing in the daily snack. Last month he chose to bring popcorn, and instead of just popping it ourselves, we purchased a few bags from the store. We may have purchased a bag for ourselves too. The ingredients on the bag read: “popcorn, coconut oil, and salt”. Pure goodness here. The coconut popcorn combo was both unexpectedly and expectedly delicious all in the same. I’m very fond of the buttered version, but on the flip, coconut oil is pretty much amazing on anything, and that certainly proved to be true here. But after mentioning this deliciousness to some friends, it seems as though this combo has been around for awhile. But hey, I’m just happy I know about this deliciousness now. One thing I bet you all didn’t know though…popcorn and coconut are friggin amazing in ice cream. I know becuase that’s what I made this week’s flavor – Coconut Popcorn

Not an ice cream with chunkers of coconut though. I like having a creamy ice cream that is a full infusion of its components. Infusions make it fun trying to decipher and pin point the different tastes that you’re experiencing. Occasionally the infusion becomes a “sum of its parts”, meaning the components have basically mingled together to make one single flavor. Regardless, the infusion usual doesn’t disappoint. For this coconut infusion, I wanted to double down and really get a nice coconut flavor, so I used both toasted coconut and coconut oil. The coconut gets toasted in a 325 degree oven for about 10 minutes and then added into our cane sugar base during pasteurization. The coconut oil is blended into a small amount of ice cream base to emulsify the fats. It’s easiest to do the emulsification before adding the toasted coconut into the base.

Next, the popcorn. Over high heat, canola oil gets heated in a pan along with popcorn kernals. The pan is covered, shaken up once and awhile, and popped. After popping the corn, I need to condense it so I can get enough flavor into the cream. The popcorn gets chopped up in a blender or food processor. The popcorn’s volume is reduced by 50%. The ground popcorn is added into our ice cream base with toasted coconut. The base is pasteurized, and the toasted coconut and popcorn steep for 5-10 minutes before the base is strained through a fine mesh strainer. The base is given and final salting, is cooled, and is ready to churn.

Coconut popcorn says, “We make a great snack, but an even better ice cream”. So true coconut popcorn. So true.

Coconut Popcorn

Popcorn:
2 Tablespoons popcorn
2 teaspoons Canola oil

2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup cane sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 cup Toasted coconut
2 Tablespoons Coconut oil, melted
1 teaspoon Sea salt

Instructions:

1. Prepare the popcorn: In a medium sized sauce pan, heat canola oil over high heat. When oil is shimmering, add popcorn and cover. shake sauce pan occasionally to keep the popcorn kernels moving around. Once popping, remove from heat when popping slows down. Pour popped corn into a blender. Pulse blender until popcorn is chopped into small pieces. Reserve 1 cup of blended popcorn for ice cream base.

2. Toast coconut: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place coconut on a sheet pan and toast in oven for approx. 10 minutes, or until golden brown on the edges.

3. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk and sea salt. Whisk until ingredients are combined.

4. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 110-120 degrees. Remove from heat. Take one cup of the warmed ice cream base out and place in blender. With blender running, slowly add the melted coconut oil until emulsified. Pour emulsified mixture back into sauce pan with ice cream base.

Add toasted coconut and 1 cup of popcorn to the base. Resume whisking or stirring base continuously over medium heat until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat, and allow to steep for 10 minutes. Strain base through a fine mesh strainer. 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 11/6/15 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 23, 2015

Roasted Yellow Pepper Saffron and Honey

Staying inspired by the harvest that continues to roll in, for this week’s flavor, I’m using components from a sauce I used to make. A sauce consisting of roasted yellow pepper, saffron, honey, garlic, dijon mustard, and rice vinegar. It is an excellent accompaniment to grilled salmon and always best when red and yellow peppers are in season. I clearly needed to revise my ingredient list if I was going to convert this thing into an ice cream, so for the ice cream, roasted pepper, saffron and honey made the most sense to me. And hey, it worked! Let’s get it started…this week’s flavor – Roasted Yellow Pepper Saffron and Honey.

First, roasting the peppers, which starts with these gorgeous ones from the Midtown Farmers Market in Minneapolis. I like to roast my peppers over an open flame, if possible. It’s quick, and gives the peppers a nice char. Once the peppers are charred all the way around, I wrap them tight in plastic wrap and allow them to sweat for a few minutes. The sweating process loosens all that charred skin, and makes it simple to scrap off. Now that we have our roasted peppers, it’s time to make them usable in our ice cream.

As with all of our flavors, we strive for an ice cream that never turns out icy, which can be challenging when working with fresh fruits and vegetables. Naturally, they all have a lot of moisture, so to reduce the moisture content, our first step is to clean our roasted peppers and puree in a blender. The puree is strained through a fine mesh strainer. We try to push out as much moisture as possible. We are left with two things – one, a roasted yellow pepper paste, and two, pepper liquid from pressing through the strainer. We reserve our paste and make another paste using the liquid, with a small amount of sugar added to it. In a sauce pan the liquid mixture is reduced down over high heat. We stir constantly so not to burn, and what we are left with is a dark roasted yellow pepper paste that is packed with flavor. This paste is added to the stained version and is put on reserve for the ice cream base.

Saffron! I’m sure you’ve all heard of it, right? Worth its weight in gold, and used in Spanish and Middle Eastern cooking. Yes, yes, all of these things, but it’s also wonderful in ice cream and desserts. A small amount goes a long way, so for the ice cream base, we add a pinch to our standard cane sugar base before pasteurization. Our roasted yellow pepper pastes are also added at this time. After pasteurization, and a brief steep, our base is cooled and is ready to churn.

After churning, we layer in a generous portion of Ames Farm Honey, and the results are this wonderful flavor that is created by the combination of the saffron, roasted yellow pepper, and honey. It’s rich, creamy, without a hint of iciness. Another harvest vegetable successfully incorporated into our ice cream!

Roasted Yellow Pepper Saffron and Honey

Roasted Pepper Pastes:
1 Yellow Pepper, Large
2 teaspoons sugar

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Sea salt
Pinch Saffron
Reserved Roasted Yellow Pepper Pastes

2-3 Tablespoons Honey, for layering into finished ice cream

Instructions:

1. Roast Pepper: Place pepper over an open flame, such as gas stove top burner. Char all sides of the pepper until the pepper’s skin is entirely black. Wrap the charred pepper tightly in plastic wrap or other type of sealable bag. Allow pepper to sweat for 5 minutes. Remove pepper and using fingers or knife, scrape all of the black skin off of the pepper (there may be a few flecks of char that don’t come off, and this is ok). Clean the pepper as you normally would, removing the seeds and any white ribs on the inside. You should be left with only the roasted pepper flesh.

2. Prepare Roasted Pepper Pastes: Using a blender or food processor, puree roasted pepper. Place a fine mesh strainer over a bowl, and pour pepper puree into strainer. Using a spatula, press all of the liquid through the strainer, until all that is remaining is paste. Reserve this paste for the ice cream base. Pour the roasted pepper 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 an almost brown paste forms. Add the reduced paste to the paste from strainer and reserve for ice cream base.

3. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk, salt, saffron, and roasted yellow pepper pastes. Whisk until ingredients are combined.

4. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. 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. Swirl in honey after ice cream is in storage container. 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 9/25/15 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 9, 2015

Bacon Tomato and Mayo on Toast

We’re deep into tomato season, which brings us to this crazy idea we’ve had. Not just us, but a few of our most loyal fans have suggested such a flavor as well. A BLT of sorts, sans the lettuce, cause who needs the lettuce anyway? Personally, it’s always been about the bacon, tomato, and mayonnaise for me. In ice cream though? Hell yes!! We knew this would be a laborious flavor, but it’s like any other ice cream flavor we’ve ever made…we just have to know what it would taste like. So here it is, this week’s flavor – Bacon Tomato and Mayo on Toast.

We’ve tackled tomato ice cream before, but in a different way, using a fresh uncooked tomato paste. For this flavor, I wanted to use every bit of the tomato, juice included, only discarding the seeds. After digging around a little on the interwebs, I decided to emulate a technique used by Kathy Miles. To start with, I made a tomato concasse. For those unfamiliar with the process, tomatoes are boiled for a short time, shocked in ice water, peeled, quartered, and then seeds and innards removed, leaving only the meat of the tomato. Here, I placed all seeds and innards into a fine mesh strainer and jammed all of the liquid through with a wooden spoon.

The tomato concasse (meat) is torn into pieces and placed on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. The tomatoes are sprinkled with sugar and slow roasted in a low temperature oven for a few hours. The tomatoes are sweet and dehydrated, but not leathery. They are reserved to get mixed into the ice cream before packaging.

Next, I’m using the reserved tomato liquid that I jammed through the fine mesh strainer to make a tomato paste/syrup. The paste will be used to flavor our ice cream base. A small amount of sugar is added to the liquid, and it is reduced to a syrupy paste. Now to make our tomato bacon ice cream base. After lightly rendering chopped bacon, the bacon and its renderings are added into our standard cane sugar ice cream base with a few extra egg yolks for steeping. The egg yolks are giving homage to mayonnaise. The base is pasteurized, and the chopped bacon is strained out with a fine mesh sieve. The tomato paste is whisked in.

While the base is cooling, it’s time to get our toast into the ice cream. White bread is toasted with a heavy hand, and then crumbs are scraped with a butter knife into our bacon and tomato base. Once the base is cooled, it is ready to churn.

Over the years, we’ve made a number of flavors with bacon, and it has always been a challenge to keep bacon crunchy in the ice cream when desired. This is our best technique yet for crunchy bacon staying crunchy in ice cream. First, thick sliced bacon is baked on a sheet pan in the oven until lightly browned and partially rendered. The bacon is drained on paper towels and cooled. The cooled cooked slices are then diced fine and rendered again over medium high heat until very crispy and brown. This is the crucial step…remove bacon from pan with a slotted spoon and place on plate/pan to cool WITHOUT paper towels. Leaving some residual fat on the bacon will ensure that it stays crispy and crunchy. Once cooled, the fat will form a protective layer around each tiny piece of bacon so that the ice cream will not penetrate and soften the pieces. The bacon is added into the ice cream at the end of the churn along with the sweet roasted tomatoes.

Deep into tomato season and another crazy idea becomes true ice cream. Bacon Tomato and Mayo on Toast – it’s an irresistible ice cream BLT.

Bacon Tomato and Mayo on Toast

Sweet Roasted Tomatoes and Tomato Paste:
3 Tomatoes, large
3 Tablespoons Cane sugar

Crunchy Bacon:
2 pieces bacon, thick cut

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
1/2 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Egg Yolks
1 teaspoon Sea salt
2 pieces Bacon, thick cut
2 pieces Bread, White
Tomato paste, from reserve

Instructions:

1. Make Tomato Concasse: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice water and set aside. Place a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and set aside. Cut an “x” in the bottom of each tomato with a knife. Place tomatoes in pot of boiling water for about 20-30 seconds. Transfer tomatoes to bowl of ice water and allow to cool for a few minutes. Peel skin from tomatoes. Cut each tomato into quarters, remove seeds and place them into fine mesh strainer to drain. Reserve tomato concasse (the meat of the tomato) for roasting and reserve the strainer material for tomato paste.

2. Make Sweet Roasted Tomatoes: Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Tear reserved tomato concasse quarters into pieces and place on parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with 2 Tablespoons of sugar. Roast in oven for 2-3 hours until tomatoes have lost most of their moisture. They shouldn’t look dried out like sun dried tomatoes, but should be fairly dehydrated. Cool and remove sweet roasted tomatoes from parchment and reserve for ice cream.

3. Make Tomato Paste: Using the tomato seeds and insides that are reserved in fine mesh strainer, use a wooden spoon to crush all of the tomato liquid through strainer into bowl. The remaining seed material in the strainer should be dry and amount to very little after all has been pushed through. Discard solids. In a sauce pan add 1 Tablespoon of sugar to tomato liquid. Over medium high heat, reduce liquid to a syrupy paste consistency, stirring frequently so not to burn the paste. Remove from the heat and reserve for ice cream base.

4. Make Crunchy Bacon: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place bacon on sheet pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until bacon is cooked, but not rendered completely, and is not crispy. Remove bacon, drain on paper towels, and cool. Chop bacon into a fine dice. Over medium high heat, place diced bacon in saute pan and render a second time until dark brown and crispy. Remove bacon from pan with slotted and place on plate to cool. Do not place on paper towels or pat dry with paper towels. Place cooled crispy bacon in air tight container, freeze, and reserve until ice cream is at the end of churning.

5. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs and yolks into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, milk, and salt. Whisk until ingredients are combined.

6. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Roughly chop bacon. In a sauce pan over medium heat, render bacon until it starts to brown. Add ice cream base. Continuing over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. Allow bacon to steep for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, toast white bread in toaster until well done. After bacon steep, strain base into a clean bowl with a fine mesh strainer. Add reserved tomato paste. With the back of a butter knife, scrape toast crumbs into ice cream base, and eat or discard toast after scraping. Whisk paste and toast crumbs into base. 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.

7. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. During the last minutes of churning, add in sweet roasted tomatoes and crunchy bacon. 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 9/11/15 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!