Erik – Page 20 – FROZBROZ

June 7, 2012

Peanut Butter and Spicy Coconut Curry

Up until now, we haven’t really discussed what makes a quality ice cream in the marketplace. There are obviously many factors that play into an ice creams’ overall quality, but as far as Federal standards are concerned we are talking about the amount of milkfat in the ice cream, and the amount of overrun. Overrun is the volume of air that is incorporated into the ice cream, and Federal standards allow for as little as 10% milkfat and as much as 100% overrun, meaning half of your ice cream is ice cream and the other half is air. This is standard practice for many commercial ice creams in our stores and why we see such a huge discrepancy in prices. There are differing designations for qualities, with the highest being “super premium”, which means milkfat content is somewhere between 14-16% and overrun is 25% or less. Super premium is where our product resides and always will. If there was an Ultra super premium designation, we would be in it, because our ice cream has high milkfat content and overrun of less than 25%. Next time you’re at the store, pick up a few differently priced pints and notice that some are heavier than others. When it comes to ice cream, typically the heavier the pint, the higher the quality. With our low overrun ice cream comes a texture difference as well. It is rich, creamy and more dense, which means it takes longer to breakdown in your mouth. And that’s good because you have longer to savor the flavor. So why are we bringing up this topic of quality now? Well, partly because we go to great lengths, (including controlling the pasteurization process) to make the highest quality ice cream possible. Second, as a consumer, the more you know the better right? Third, and most importantly, this weeks flavor is the epitome of quality in terms of low overrun. So lets get started…

This is peanut buttery goodness, and it was ground fresh from whole peanuts over at the Seward Coop just hours before hitting the creams. I mean, how cool is it to step up to a machine that is full of peanuts, press a button, and out squirts beautiful peanut butter? Maybe not that cool if you have a peanut allergy, but hey, it’s just a fantastic thing for peanut butter lovers. That’s us. The peanut butter gets whisked into the cream while we heat it up along with…

Coconut! As we do with our Seven Layer Bar ice cream, we toast the coconut before steeping it in our cream, which really intensifies the coconut flavors and infuses it into our base.

Mmmmmm, coconut milk. What would a curry be without coconut milk? Have you ever seen this brand before? You can get this and about five other brands you’ve never seen before over at United Noodles in Minneapolis. Please go there. If not for the largest selection of Asian grocery items from 15 different counties, then at least check out their new Deli(Unideli) for lunch. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.

The coconut milk gets added into the cream with the peanut butter and toasted coconut.

Ok, so this is where it gets interesting. When we order Thai food, we generally hit up True Thai. In our opinions, it’s some of the best Thai food Minneapolis has to offer, and it’s one of our neighborhood faves. This weeks flavor draws all inspiration from True Thai’s Rama Spinach Curry with Roasted Peanuts dish,

which incorporates a red curry paste, like this one, with peanuts and coconut milk. It’s served with rice, steamed spinach and bean sprouts. Fantastic! The idea just seemed like it would work in ice cream.

This particular red curry paste is made with chilies, lemongrass, shallots, kafir lime, galangal and spices (coriander, cumin, and cardamom). We stir it in with all the others during heating/steeping.

After our base is heated and all ingredients are steeped, we strain it through a fine mesh strainer to achieve an ultra smooth base ready for the churn.

Peanut Butter and Spicy Coconut Curry ice cream. The viscosity of the peanut butter gave our ice cream makers a workout and by the end of the churn appeared to have virtually 0% overrun, making for uber richness. This weeks pints really do out weigh the competition!

As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this flavor. Just leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (6/8/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page (or email you if you’re comment resides here). Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!

May 24, 2012

Bahārāt

One of my favorite cookbooks is “A Mediterranean Feast” by Clifford A. Wright. The book brings together the historical and culinary histories of all the diverse cuisines found in the Mediterranean. It is in this book that I was first introduced to bahārāt. Bahārāt means “spice” in Arabic, and is derived from the word bahār, which means “pepper”, so it is usually a spice blend containing pepper. In the Middle East, bahārāt is used in many savory dishes, and up until now, that is what I have used it for as well. The blend that I generally use contains pepper, allspice, cinnamon and ginger. Just reading that ingredient list could have anyone thinking it’s going into a sweet dish, but a pinch or two in your lamb burgers…mind blowing and life changing. This is of course why I started thinking that bahārāt could make a killer ice cream. It has both sweet and savory aspects, and oh, not to mention mind blowing attributes. And since bahārāt is a spice blend, the list of spices span a wide range depending on the origin of the dish. So lets get to work…

Here are the players in the bahārāt that we’ve blended specifically for FrozBroz Craft Ice Cream. We always use whole spices whenever possible and if you must know, all of these came from Penzeys Spices. Penzeys is as local as it gets for a spice store in Minneapolis, with their origins coming from the Broz home state of Wisconsin. In the picture, let’s move left to right and start with the proverbial Cinnamon sticks, followed by Nutmeg, Allspice, Cloves, Coriander, Peppercorn mix, and in the middle, Cardamom.

Spice party! Let’s grind!

This party is grinding down. Bahārāt is now ready to be tossed into our ice cream base and churned.

FrozBroz Bahārāt Ice Cream! The explosion of spice hits immediately and continues to unfold as the ice cream melts in your mouth.

Would you like to try some? As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this flavor. Just leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (5/25/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page (or email you if you’re comment resides here). Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!

May 10, 2012

Lemon Poppy Sour Cream Chevre with Rhubarb Compote

If you’re a vegetable gardener in Minnesota (and even if you’re not) you probably know that it’s prime season for one of the first harvested vegetables here in the North – Rhubarb! There is a lot of talk right now in the local culinary community about getting more out of this underutilzed vegetable that is so plentiful in many of our gardens this time of year. I think it’s safe to say that when someone mentions rhubarb, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a dessert, say maybe rhubarb pie, or rhubarb crisp(check out last years rhubarb crisp flavor HERE). And being that we are ice cream makers, this one is going to be a dessert as well – Lemon Poppy Sour Cream Chevre with Rhubarb Compote.

We’ve mentioned before that we get inspiration for our flavors from a wide range of sources, and sometimes it’s simply from seeing a recipe on a television show or a magazine. I ran across a lemon poppy cheesecake recipe a month or so ago that had me thinking about all of these flavors in ice cream.

So to get started I rocked out a cheesecake-esk ice cream base using the following four ingredients…lemon zest, poppy seeds, sour cream – from Westby Creamery in Westby, WI and chevre cheese – from Donnay Dairy in Kimball, MN

Together these flavors make a nice rich, creamy flavorful backbone for the rhubarb compote to sit with.

Rhubarb! This is from a rhubarb plant that goes back three generations on my in-laws side of the family. It is essential heirloom rhubarb, and it is beautiful!

Rhubarb gets choppy chopped and into a pan with sugar, orange zest and a vanilla bean. We simmer it down and evaporate as much liquid as possible.

At this point we toss in a little Elderflower liqueur, which deepens the compote’s flavor and gives it a nice floral tone.

The finished rhubarb compote is thick and jammy with a perfect balance of sweet and tartness. We be Jammin. It gets layered in to the pints during packaging leaving little tart flavor pockets among the rich lemon poppy sour cream chevre ice cream.

Lemon Poppy Sour Cream Chevre with Rhubarb Compote! More Minnesota Grown vegetables used the FrozBroz way.

We have 2 days left in our fundraising campaign on Indiegogo. If you haven’t donated already and can help, we would really appreciate it. You can donate on our site by clicking here: INDIEGOGO/FROZBROZ

As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this flavor. Just leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (5/11/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page (or email you if you’re comment resides here). Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!

Would you like to see more of this kind of ice cream or be able to buy it online? Then please, help us with our fundraiser on indiegogo, we only have 2 DAYS left and need all the help we can get! And in exchange you’ll be one of the first to get our ice cream. Visit our page at www.indiegogo.com/frozbroz

April 26, 2012

Sweet Pea Mint

Here in Minnesota Spring is in the air, which is a little weird since it has felt like Spring for about two months now. This new season brings us much anticipation of a whole range of new flavors that the Minnesota harvest will bring. And thanks to our pals over at Bossy Acres, the harvest has already begun. If you don’t know Bossy, it’s time you “liked” them and followed them on Facebook and Twitter. Karla and Elizabeth of Bossy Acres are growing local, sustainable, organic produce right here in the city of Minneapolis, along with a small two acre plot in Dayton, MN. Not only are they growing a wide range of vegetables, gourmet salad mixes, micro greens, herbs, and sprouts, they are truly great stewards of our community.

Thanks to their efforts at their “urban ag site“, we picked up some of these gorgeous pea shoots for this weeks flavor: Sweet Pea Mint

These beauties are no joke. They offer a ton of sweet pea flavor and a nice crunchy pop. The question is: how do I get that sweet pea flavor into the ice cream?

These shoots are gold, and knowing the time and effort Bossy put into growing these really had me thinking about the best way to go about things. This is the point where I could go off about how important it is to know where your food comes from, and starting a relationship with your local farmers, purveyors and businesses, but I will spare you for another day.

I decided to separate the stems from the leaves. The stems got tossed into the cream for a steeping session along with

some of the leaves from this lucious mint from the Wisconsin Growers Cooperative.

After steeping, the mixture gets strained of all solids.

At this point the base took on a light green hue. The flavors were all there, but I really wanted more of that sweet pea flavor to envelop the cream, so I took the separated fresh pea shoot leaves and processed them finely in the food processor.

The sweet pea leaves get added into the strained sweet pea mint cream base and then into the mixer for a churn.

The result…

FrozBroz Spring flavors comin atchya with Sweet Pea Mint ice cream! At first bite the sweet pea flavor hits hard followed by a blast of mint then blending together like two peas in a pod.

As we do every week, we’ll be giving away two pints of this flavor. Just leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the drawing. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (4/27/2012) at 4pm and will announce them on our facebook page (or email you if you’re comment resides here). Our only conditions are you must be able to pick it up here in Minneapolis, and be willing to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!

Would you like to see more of this kind of ice cream or be able to buy it online? Then please, help us with our fundraiser on indiegogo, we only have 15 days left and need all the help we can get! And in exchange you’ll be one of the first to get our ice cream. Visit our page at www.indiegogo.com/frozbroz

April 17, 2012

Sweet and Sour Cream Cheese Wonton – Fan Flavor Contest No. 2

This brings to a close our second “Fan Flavor Contest”. Again, the winner will be stylin in a spanky new FrozBroz T-shirt as well as eating a pint of their suggested flavor. We had a great response and everyone offered an impressive array of flavors, some intriguing and some kinda scary. So thank you to everyone who participated, and congratulations to Adam Arling who was the winner of “Fan Flavor Contest” No. 2 with his flavor suggestion of Sweet and Sour Cream Cheese Wonton.

When we make a flavor, conceptually, there are a number of different routes to take it. For this one, we both immediately knew that making a sweet and sour syrup to layer into the pints was the route for us.

The sweet and sour syrup consists of a reduction of rice vinegar, tomato paste, sugar, pineapple chuckers, and last but not least…Sriracha Chili Sauce. We needed to reduce this mixture into a syrup instead of thickening with cornstarch, so we could evaporate as much of the water content as possible.

After the syrup has reduced and thickened, we strain out the pineapple and tomato solids and we’re left with a nice sweet and sour syrup that doesn’t get icy when frozen in the ice cream.

The wontons presented a challenge – so thin and fragile they’re likely to get soggy in the cream – so we took a double headed approach – some steeped in the cream to add the fried flavor, and others were rolled up before frying and dried in the oven after to get a maximum crunch. Will they hold up in the ice cream? Time will tell, but the wonton flavor is undeniable.

Cream Cheese! We decided to mix this directly into our base . It makes for an ultra rich cheese cakey ice cream, along with all of the starches from steeping the base with fried wontons.

That wraps up or second “Fan Flavor Contest” with Adam’s suggestion of Sweet and Sour Cream Cheese Wonton FrozBroz style. Congrats Adam on the cray cray suggestion.!

UPDATE: 4/23/2012 Feedback from one of our winners…

Four of us tried the Wonton ice cream last night. Three of us enjoyed it; it was a bit too “saucy” for the fourth person’s tastes (she’s sensitive to vinegar flavors).

Here are our comments:
+ The ice cream base is really tasty and creamy. The cream cheese added smoothness to the base; we all felt that this base was exceptional in its texture. The flavor was mild, which was good so that it didn’t “fight” the sauce ribbons.
+ The sauce ribbons provided a good flavor contrast. It was a weird flavor for ice cream, but weird in a good way. We all enjoy funky desserts, so we really got into the fact that there was sweet n’ sour sauce in our ice cream!
+ The crunchy wonton bits added a nice texture contrast, and their flavor was appropriately wonton-y. Personally, these bits were my favorite aspect of the ice cream.
+ The other wonton bits were too mushy; they made it feel like the wonton bits were inconsistent.
+ The blending was inconsistent. Some bites were really strong with loads of sauce, while others were sauce-less. With much of the flavor coming from the sauce, we felt that the end product would be better if the ribbons were thinner and more evenly incorporated.
+ This same group of people tasted your Cardamom Basmati Pistachio ice cream, and we all agreed that we LOVED that one and LIKED this one.

Please don’t forget about our Indiegogo fundraising – we have just under 26 days to go and need all the help we can get! Help us meet our goal so we can start making our ice cream and getting it to all that want it.

http://www.indiegogo.com/frozbroz?a=446076