Erik – Page 2 – FROZBROZ

August 27, 2015

Cherry Sassafras

A few weeks back we came across some beautiful Wisconsin grown dark cherries that we used to make our Cherry Basil Yogurt Pretzel. This week, it’s Wisconsin grown sour cherries. When they’re around, sour cherries are only here for a short time and they’re usually in short supply. I’ve been itching to make a cherry sarsaparilla root beer flavor, but after just happening upon these sour cherries, time to track was too tight to track down sarsaparilla root. Instead, I found some sassafras root at my local coop, Seward Community Coop that I thought would do the trick. This week’s flavor – Cherry Sassafras

This is sassafras root. It’s actually the root of a tree. It’s used in tea, and by some microbrewers to make root beer, but for the most part it has been replaced with artificial flavors. We don’t use any artificial flavors in our ice cream, EVER, so we’re using the real thing for this one. The dried sassafras root has a strong aroma of root beer, and with a deep whiff, there are strong notes of anise. To infuse our ice cream, the root is steeped in our standard cane sugar base during the cooking process. Vanilla and cardamom seeds are also used in the steep. After pasteurization, the sassafras root is strained out with a fine mesh sieve. The base is cooled and is then ready to churn.

For the sour cherries, these beauties are first pitted, and then brought to simmer with a splash of fresh lemon juice and cane sugar. Using the cold plate method to check consistency of jam/syrup, the cherries are monitored during the simmering process and cooled down once desired consistency is achieved. After churning the sassafras ice cream, the cherries are swirled into the ice cream before packaging.

Cherry Sassafras! The sassafras is so unique. The flavor crosses between cherry root beer and cherry cola. One thing is for sure – there’s nothing artificial tasting here.

Cherry Sassafras

Sour Cherry Jam:
1 pint Sour cherries, pitted
1 cup Cane sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons Lemon juice

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tablespoon Sassafras root
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3/4 teaspoon Sea salt
1/8 teaspoon Cardamom seeds, removed from pods

Instructions:

1. Make cherry jam: Place a plate in the freezer (this will come in handy in a bit). In a medium saucepan combine the cherries and lemon juice. Let stand for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in sugar. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir the mix until the bubbles subside and the jam appears slightly thickened, somewhere around 15 minutes. To test for doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam is gooey and wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. This means it will not be icy in the cream (which you do not want). If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Cover and chill completely until you are ready to make the ice cream.

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

3. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. Allow sassafras to steep for 10 minutes. Strain base into a clean bowl with 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.

4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Swirl in sour cherry jam 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 8/28/15 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!

August 11, 2015

Blueberry Carrot with Pecan Jam

As I always do, I made my wife her much anticipated birthday carrot cake recently. We were digging in, and she said, “You should do a carrot blueberry flavor”. I may have brushed off the idea initially, but then I plated up a few pieces the next day on top of some blueberry jam and a scoop of our Sage Blueberry ice cream…bliss. The combo was amazing; in cake and jam form at least, so I set out to test the combo in true ice cream form. And, this week’s flavor was born – Blueberry Carrot with Pecan Jam

Blueberries and carrots. Simple things grown and tended by the hands of hard working farmers right here in Minnesota. It’s these simple things that taste as they should when grown in our backyards and eaten in season. If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that the quality and flavor of our ice cream screams off the charts during the local growing season when we have such a bounty to choose from. These simple things, they’re going in our ice cream.

For the blueberries, they’re mashed with a splash of lemon juice and reduced to a jam with cane sugar. The carrots are sliced, tossed with butter, and roasted in the oven until roasty toasty and slightly browned. Both the roasted carrots and blueberry jam are pureed in a blender and added to our ice cream base. For this flavor, we’re using cane sugar, but to keep the flavors consistent with our initial carrot cake combo, we added sour cream to the base to emulate the flavor of cream cheese, just like in the cakes frosting. The sour cream blueberry carrot ice cream base is pasteurized, cooled and is ready to churn.

The pecan jam was kind of an afterthought, but it pairs really nicely. We could put pecans in any flavor of ice cream and they would probably be great, in my opinion, but I did want to stay with the carrot cake theme here, and pecans are a fundamental piece. For the jam, pecans are chopped and simmered down with brown sugar, honey, water, and then finished with a pinch of cinnamon and Maldon sea salt. The jam is cooled and is layered into the pints during the packaging process.

Success! A velvety blend of blueberries, carrots and cream cheese to make the perfect scoop along with the addition of a gooey layer of jam made from pecans, honey and a hint of cinnamon. Raise a scoop to my wife; it was a great idea, happy birthday!

Blueberry Carrot with Pecan Jam

Blueberry Jam:
1 cup Blueberries
1/2 Lemon, juiced, seeds removed
1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons Cane Sugar

Roasted Carrots:
1-2 Carrots, medium, 1/4″ slices
1 Tablespoon Butter, melted

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Sour Cream
1/2 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
3/4 teaspoon Sea salt
Blueberry Carrot puree

Pecan Jam:
1/2 Cup Pecans
1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon Sea Salt, Maldon

Instructions:

1. Make blueberry jam: Place a plate in the freezer. Place blueberries in medium sauce pan. Using a potato masher, crush blueberries (leave some whole). Add lemon juice and sugar, and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir until bubbles subside and jam appears slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. To test doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; reserve.

2. Make Roasted Carrots: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss carrots with melted butter and roast for 15 minutes. Stir carrots and roast for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool; reserve.

3. Make ice cream base: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add cane sugar and whisk. Add heavy cream, sour cream, and salt. Whisk until ingredients are combined. In a blender or food processor puree reserved blueberry jam and roasted carrots. Add milk and process smooth. Add blueberry/carrot puree to ice cream base 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. 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. Make Pecan Jam: Chop pecans into small pieces. In a sauce pan bring chopped pecans, brown sugar, water, and honey to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes or until jam like consistency is achieved. The cold plate test is a good indicator. Remove from heat and stir in cinnamon and sea salt. Cool, refrigerate in air tight container, and reserve until packaging.

6. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Layer in pecan jam while packaging in air tight storage container, then store 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 8/14/15 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!

July 28, 2015

Sage Blueberry

Summer harvest is in full swing, and to utilize the bounty we’re bringing together herbs and berries. Like our friend Heidi of Serious Jam, we’re bringing together sage and blueberries. An unlikely paring maybe, but hit up the farmers market this weekend and get your hands on a jar of her blueberry bourbon sage jam. You won’t be sorry. You won’t be sorry if you win a pint of our ice cream this week either. Here’s how we’re going to go about this week’s flavor – Sage Blueberry.

First, we’re going to establish a sage ice cream base. As we often do with fresh herbs, we’re going to infuse our standard cane sugar ice cream base by steeping the herbs during the pasteurization process. The sage is chopped, steeped, and then strained out. We chill down the infused base, and it’s ready to churn.

Next, we’re going to make a freezer type blueberry jam using these blueberries from the Rabideaux’s Bayfield Fruit Company. The blueberries are crushed, lemon juice and sugar are added, and the jam is simmered down until proper consistency is achieved. After the jam is cooled, it is swirled into the sage ice cream during the packaging process.

Utilizing the bounty one ingredient at a time. Earthy sage infused ice cream with ribbons of local blueberry jam.

Sage Blueberry

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
1/4 cup Sage, chopped
1 teaspoon Sea salt

Blueberry Jam:
2 cups Blueberries
1/2 Lemon, juiced, seeds removed
3/4 cup Cane Sugar

Instructions:

1. Make blueberry jam: Place a plate in the freezer. Place blueberries in medium sauce pan. Using a potato masher, crush blueberries(leave some whole). Add lemon juice and sugar, and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir until bubbles subside and jam appears slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. To test doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; cover and chill completely.

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

3. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat. Allow sage to steep for 10 minutes. Strain base into a clean bowl with 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.

4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Swirl in blueberry jam 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 7/31/15 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!

July 15, 2015

Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly

It was a Saturday not too long ago at our cabin in Wisconsin; a beautiful day. It was late afternoon happy hour, and as always the trove of hors d’oeuvres were laid out on the table; Merkts, crackers, sausage, humus, veggies, olives, pickles, chips, salsa, and a classic that my mother has been eating for as long as I can remember; cream cheese and pepper jelly. It’s this one that hit me. The creaminess of the cream cheese and the subtle tartness and spiciness of the pepper jelly that cuts right through…it’s a wonderful combination. After all of these years of eating it myself, it finally dawned on me that this should be an ice cream flavor. And now it will be. So let’s get to this week’s flavor – Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly

Cream cheese! Plain old awesome cream cheese. It makes the world a better place. Also, it makes for a great ice cream as well. We add it into our standard organic cane sugar ice cream base before pasteurization. It makes for an ultra-rich creamy base that will pair great with the pepper jelly.

Next, we make our pepper jelly starting with green and red bell peppers and jalapenos. The peppers are cleaned and pureed in a food processor with crushed red pepper flakes. Cane sugar and vinegar are added. The only hesitation I had with this flavor was the vinegar in the pepper jelly, but as I mentioned in my opening, it is that subtle tartness from the vinegar that cuts right through the richness of the cream cheese.

The mixture is brought to a boil. Technically this will be a pepper syrup of sorts, because when frozen, we want our syrup to be the consistency of jelly. So instead of adding a jelling agent, we’re going to cook out this syrup to the desired consistency. To do this, we put a plate in the freezer. While the jelly is boiling, we take a spoonful out and pour onto our cold plate. The cold plate chills the jelly immediately, and we’re able to see where the viscosity is at. If it’s too runny, we keep cooking it. If it’s too thick, we pull from the heat, add a little water, and test again. We like to be able to run our finger through the cold syrup and have it wrinkle without too much effort. After the syrup is cooled and the cream cheese base is churned, we swirl in the pepper jelly.

Happy hour hors d’oeuvres in ice cream form. It’s a delightfully creamy cheesy ice cream layered with ribbons of hot pepper jelly. Perfect for a hot summer day at the cabin.

Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly

Pepper Jelly:
1 Red bell pepper, small
1/2 Green bell pepper, small
2 Jalapenos
1 1/2 cup White vinegar
6 cups Cane sugar
1 teaspoon Red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Sea salt

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1/2 cup Milk
4 oz. Cream cheese
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
3/4 teaspoon Sea salt

Instructions:

1. Make pepper jelly: Place a plate in the freezer. In food processor, puree all peppers. In a medium saucepan combine pepper puree with remaining ingredients. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir until bubbles subside and jam appears slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. To test doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; cover and chill completely.

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

3. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously to break up cream cheese. Keep stirring 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). Put base in a clean container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Swirl in pepper jelly 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 7/17/15 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!

June 29, 2015

Buttermilk Strawberry Fudge Brownie

It’s strawberry season guys! Not to mention, it’s 4th of July week, so we’re taking this one out with a bang. Fans keep asking, “when are you going to do another flavor with chocolate in it?” Well, if this is going to be a bangin flavor, we’re going to do that too. We’re doing it all! This one is going to knock your socks off! Let’s get started with this week’s flavor – Buttermilk Strawberry Fudge Brownie

My hope is that people are never turned off by the word “buttermilk” being in a flavor. Buttermilk gives ice cream a rich subtle tang, and if you’ve had it with strawberries…yum, and if you’ve had it with chocolate…yum. We’re doing both, so it’s a double dog yummerson. For this flavor we’re using our favorite Kalona organic buttermilk. It gets added into our standard cane sugar base before pasteurization. Here we also have some beautiful strawberries that we picked up at the Midtown Farmers Market. We’re gonna jam these out to swirl into the buttermilk ice cream. The berries are cleaned, halved and go into a sauce pan with lemon juice and cane sugar. After a heavy simmer down, the strawberries are vibrant and jammy. The jam gets swirled into the ice cream at the end of the churn.

For the fudge brownies, we used a combination of Ecuador dark chocolate from Equal Exchange, and Valrona cocoa powder. The combination gets incorporated with butter, and then we add sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour before baking. We take the brownies out before the center is fully set, so the inside is gooey. These fudge brownies here…they’re the chewy gooey ones. The bomb ones. The bars are frozen before they’re chopped up and added into the ice cream.

Strawberry season and 4th of July come together in bangin ice cream form. Rich buttermilk ice cream with layers of strawberry jam and chunks of chewy dark chocolate fudge brownies. Let’s celebrate!

Buttermilk Strawberry Fudge Brownie

Strawberry Jam:
1 pint strawberries(about 1/2 pound), cleaned, stemmed and halved
3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Fudge Brownies:
2 ounces dark chocolate(65% cocoa or higher), finely chopped
1 1/2 sticks of butter
1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Ice Cream Base:
2 cups Heavy Cream
1 cup Buttermilk
3/4 cup Cane Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions:

1. Strawberry Jam: Place a plate in the freezer. In a medium saucepan combine strawberries and lemon juice. Let stand for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in sugar. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Cook and stir until bubbles subside and jam appears slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. To test doneness, spoon a small amount onto the chilled plate. If jam wrinkles when you push your finger into it, it is done. If not, cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Let cool; cover and chill completely.

2. Make Fudge brownies: Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a 9-inch square cake pan with foil, and butter foil. In a large saucepan, melt the butter with the chocolate over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat. Whisking them in one at a time until thoroughly incorporated, add the cocoa, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour and sea salt. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the center of the oven for about 35 minutes, until the edge is set but center is still a little soft. If a toothpick is inserted into the center it comes out coated with a little of the batter. Let the brownies cool at room temperature. Lift the brownies from the pan and peel off the foil. Chop 3/4 cup of brownies into 1/2 dice for ice cream. Freeze chopped brownies. Chow remaining brownies.

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

4. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Over medium heat, whisk or stir base continuously. Keep stirring 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). Put base in a clean container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

5. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add 3/4 cup of chopped fudge brownies to ice cream at the end of the churn. Swirl in strawberry jam 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 7/3/15 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!