FROZBROZ – Page 3 – Minneapolis Craft Ice Cream

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 20, 2015

Margherita Pizza

We’ve riffed on tomatoes several times in the heat of the summer. In all of our ideation, we’ve always kicked around the idea of pizza but it wasn’t until now that we finally decided to take the leap. Although I must admit, I did simplify the idea this round – and chose to leave out the pepperoni (even though I was soo tempted to put it in). Instead I went the classic margherita route, inspired by the simple pizza topped with garden fresh tomatoes, basil and good old mozzarella cheese.

The process begins with the tomatoes. I chose to make a tomato jam for the tomato component of the flavor because the cherry tomatoes are typically sweeter and remind me a bit of a regular berry. The jam was made like we would make any other fruit jam, a little lemon juice, and sugar and that’s it! The cherries soak in lemon juice to coax out the liquid and then are cooked with sugar until the water is displaced. It’s a sweet jam that explodes with tomato flavor.

With the jam complete, the next step is the mozzarella ice cream base. Similar to how we’ve used cheese in previous flavors, the mozz is shredded very fine, and then slowly whisked into the ice cream base as it’s being cooked.

The last step is the basil. Fresh basil is minced very fine and added in fresh at the end of the churn to provide that bright herb-y accent that cuts right through the cheese and tomato.

I have to say, the end result was even more delightful than I expected. I knew it would be good, but the flavors came together so fantastically well. As it turns out cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella are just as successful of a trio in ice cream as they are on pizza.

The scoop is a tangy, mozzarella and basil flecked ice cream swirled with sweet cherry tomato jam.
Margherita Pizza Ice Cream Recipe

Cherry Tomato jam ingredients:
1 pint fresh cherry tomatoes, sliced in half (about 1/2 pound)
1 to 1-1/2 Cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Ice Cream ingredients:
1 Cup of Milk (The higher the fat percentage, the creamier the ice cream)
2 Cups of Heavy Cream
1 Cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese
3/4 Cup of sugar
1 Cup of pre-made Cherry Tomato Jam
1 Tablespoon minced fresh basil
1 teaspoon of salt

Instructions for the Jam: Place a plate in the freezer (this will come in handy in a bit). In a medium saucepan combine the sliced cherry tomatoes and lemon juice. Let stand for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mash briefly with a potato masher to press out more of the juice, but don’t pulverize. 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, add a bit more sugar and cook and stir a little longer before testing again. Cover and chill completely until you are ready to make the ice cream.

Instructions for ice cream: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add sugar whisk until fully combined. Add heavy cream, mozzarella cheese, and salt. Whisk again until all ingredients are fully blended.

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 basil in last 5 minutes of churning. Place ice cream is in freezer proof storage container. swirling in the cherry tomato jam in layers as you do so. Place container in freezer and freeze ice cream for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait.

*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 8/21/15 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!

August 6, 2015

Cherry Basil Yogurt Pretzel

I happened across these gorgeous dark Wisconsin cherries in the past week and snatched them up to pair with some of the fresh basil I have growing in the backyard. The very evening I bought the cherries I came home to my 2 year old son snacking on a handful of yogurt pretzels and knew right then and there that yogurt and pretzels would also have to be part of this combination. Serendipity and ice cream are a scheming pair.

The Cherries are the star of this show as they should be, and we begin with making them into a light jam. We’ve got this fantastic new method that really preserves the integrity of the fruit while keeping it from getting icy. It’s all about displacing the water content with sugar. Ah, the sweet wonder drug that we are slaves to. Sugar. With a nod to Oscar Wilde, we preach moderation in everything, including moderation.

Once the jam is made, the rest of this process is smooth sailing. The ice cream is a simple yogurt/cream base made with our favorite full fat yogurt to give it a nice tang.

This pretty garden fresh basil is minced and added in fresh at the end of the churn.

The pretzels are broken into smaller pieces and also added in at the end of the churn.

The end result is a rich yogurt basil ice cream swirled with fresh cherry jam and studded with pretzel chunks.

Cherry Basil Yogurt Pretzel Ice Cream Recipe

Cherry jam ingredients:
1 pint fresh cherries (about 1/2 pound)
1 Cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Ice Cream ingredients:
1 Cup of plain yogurt
2 Cups of Heavy Cream
3/4 Cup of sugar
1 Cup of pre-made Cherry Jam
1 Tablespoon minced fresh basil
1/2 Cup pretzels (broken up)
1 teaspoon of salt

Instructions for the 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.

Instructions for ice cream: Crack eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk fully. Add sugar whisk until fully combined. Add heavy cream, yogurt, and salt. Whisk again until all ingredients are fully blended.

5. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add basil and pretzels in last 5 minutes of churning. Place ice cream is in freezer proof storage container. swirling in the cherry jam in layers as you do so. Place container in freezer and freeze ice cream for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight if you can wait.

*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 8/7/15 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!