Artisan Ice Cream – Page 9

October 18, 2012

Caramel Cinnamon Roll

A few weeks back I made a quick one-off flavor for a family gathering that was the genesis of this idea, using our sour cream base and the cinnamon syrup leftover from our Grilled Peach and Cinnamon Syrup flavor. The combination of the cinnamon, brown sugar and the sour cream base instantly reminded me of a cinnamon roll, and screamed for a treatment similar to the method we used a year ago for the Apple Fritter Apple Fritter flavor. Meaning it was time to hunt down the best cinnamon roll we could find, which wasn’t hard at all.

If you haven’t experienced the bakery utopia that is Michelle Gayer’s Salty Tart at the Midtown market, you are sorely missing out. I made a visit with a cinnamon rolls on the brain, but what I ended up with was nothing short of serendipity.

This is Salty Tart’s caramel roll monkey bread, and I can be completely honest in saying that this is one of the most amazing pieces of food I have EVER had. I’m talking an immediate nuclear powered rocket to the top of my final meal/stranded on a desert island type of sweet roll that knocked me straight out of my keds. I was expecting it to be good. But THIS good? Wow.

Suffice it to say, as long as we didn’t screw this up, we can’t really take credit for how good this ice cream really is because a large part of it has to do with this monkey bread.

What was even better, was the assembly of the small pieces into the final product made for a perfect match to get the maximum flavor out of the steeping process, AND for the glorious chunks that would go into this ice cream. The game plan commenced.

First some of the monkey bread was torn apart and slowly baked off in the oven to make it even more crunchy and help it retain its constitution in the ice cream base. As we’re wont to do.

As the monkey bread morsels were getting their crunch on, we mixed up a sour cream base to best represent the cream cheese icing you would have on a stereo typical cinnamon roll.

We then took the remainder of the monkey bread and steeped it in the warm cream to soak up the starchy, buttery goodness of the bread. This process nets not only an ice cream base that actually tastes a lot like the monkey bread, but the starch from the bread leeches into the cream and makes exceptionally silky.

Then, the cinnamon caramel – I realized in making the first iteration of this that I actually preferred the caramel to be grainy – it provided a little crunch and extra sweetness that I liked, so we cooked the syrup to end up with a grain to it- not usually what you want when making caramel.

For the end product the caramel was swirled in amongst the amazing chunks of crunchy monkey bread, all swimming in a silken monkey bread ice cream.

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 10/12 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!

October 4, 2012

Fig, Fennel Pollen and Feta

How’s that for alliteration?

A few weeks ago we were brainstorming flavors, and as fate would have it, our friends Molly and Dave from Minnesota Peach called up with some fresh Minnesota grown figs and serendipity did the rest. The pressure always mounts a bit when we get a precious bucket of fruit from Dave’s farm, and for this one we wanted to do something decadent. So we did what we do best – we took one of our favorite bases as of recent – Fennel Pollen, and combined it with the fruit and of course (being proper Midwestern boys) some cheese.

We started with the figs. Molly delivered them perfectly ripe and they went immediately in a pot to be reduced down with sugar and lemon zest to create a rich fig puree.

The figs cooked down like good little minnesota fruits, and we ended up with this luxurious fig jam.

Then it was time for the cheese. We had decided on Feta, but there are so many options. A visit to our favorite Co-op led us to this incredibly french made Sheeps Milk Feta. It is a very creamy Feta and more mild than Spanish or Greek varieties but still retains a nice salty kick.

To prepare it for the ice cream, we froze it first and then chopped it in its frozen state to keep it from crumbling too fine and turning the ice cream into a crumbly mess. We want the chunk to be significant enough to takeover the palate for a brief moment but small enough to not overwhelm the other flavors.

For the base, we used our Fennel Pollen – which we have developed a serious love affair with and will likely be using this for upcoming flavors as a Vanilla might typically be used.

Fennel Pollen before going into the cream.

The fennel pollen ice cream was spun with the Feta going in at the end and the fig jam layered in as the ice cream goes into the pint.

Its good. Its real good. Little chunks of salty and creamy that melt into your mouth while you get bursts of figgy goodness all enveloped by the royal fennel pollen ice cream.

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 on Friday 9/28 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback or else 🙂 . Good luck!

September 20, 2012

Ground Cherry Chevre Charred Vanilla

Ground Cherries have been a late summer staple in my house for years, and seem to be getting more popular every year. They are similar to a tomatillo with makeup and husk, but have a caramal sweetness to them with just a bit of sourness. I love to use them as a pizza topping with speck or prosciutto, but they work great in desserts as well.

For the first attempt at brining them into the ice cream world, I chose to reduce them down into a simple, unaltered jam. The ground cherries were husked (which is a painstaking task for how small they are), pureed, and reduced with organic sugar into a bright yellow jam – the smell of the jam is incredible – a combination of baking bread and caramel – and the taste is very bright, and somewhat honey like, but with a tart edge and a bit of nuttiness gained from the tiny seeds.

To pair with the sweetness of the jam, I went with a Chevre base using Chevre from Donnay farms and comined it with the last of the charred vanilla bean leftover from earlier this summer.

The powdered charred vanilla goes straight into the chevre base and works harmoniously with the tanginess of the chevre. To really make the Ground Cherry Jam sing, I slightly reduced the sugar content of the ice cream base.

At the end, the ground cherry jam was swirled into the base to create a nicely balanced ice cream – dense, tangy chevre flecked with hints of charred vanilla bean, and rippled with a butterscotch like ground cherry jam.

A bright, and incredibly rich nod to the end of summer.

And that’s that. 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 on Friday 9/21 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally and give us feedback or else 🙂 . Good luck!

September 6, 2012

Beet Sour Cream Habanero with Chocolate Swirl

We’re nearing the end of the summer harvest which means a scramble to get our hands on all the local produce we can and figure out ways to use it. We’ve been scheming on root vegetables for awhile, and experimented a bit, but this flavor crosses into new territory for us. We stretched our legs, and gave it a hint of spice from one of the hottest peppers you can get your mitts on, and added a nice chocolate ganache swirl for kicks.

Beets are plentiful at the farmers markets, and we picked some up from our neighborhood favorite – (Midtown Farmers Market).

Coincidentally, I happened across a pile of these beautiful habaneros as well. The flavor of the habanero pepper is often overlooked because they are so hot, but if the seeds are removed they can be very tolerable in small amounts. The red pigment and sweetness of the beet, along with the heat of the habanero seemed to be the perfect one-two pair. After all, red means HOT right?

The ice cream was a 3 step process. First, the beets were pureed with a little bit of water to bring the juice out of them.

Damn if that color isn’t gorgeous.

After pureed, we strain out the pulp and reserve the juice to reduce into a syrup.

I think I accidentally discovered a recipe for fake blood in this process. But I digress..

For this flavor, we use our sour cream ice cream base since it pairs so well with beets and pepper everywhere else. While the beet juice cooks down, we take the reserved pulp along with the (1) seeded habanero pepper and steep them in the hot ice cream mix, then strain again at the end. This process allows us to keep the starchy/grainy vegetable out of the end product, but maximize the beet flavor and retain some of the heat of the pepper without making the ice cream an endurance/sanity contest. The heat ends up being incredibly subtle and tolerable even to my 4 year old son. Yes it could certainly be hotter.

Finally, the scratch made chocolate ganache, is added in to the ice cream as a swirl for an extra twist.

There you have it. Beet Sour Cream Habanero with Chocolate Swirl Ice Cream. A beet and habenero infused sour cream ice cream with little ribbons of chocolate ganache. The beet provides a unique earthy sweetness which goes great with the hint of chocolate and ends with a nice bit of heat on the back of your palette.

If you’re interested in trying –

Every week, we give two pints away of our new flavor in a random drawing. To enter, leave a comment on our facebook page or, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (9/7/2012) 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 agree to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!

August 9, 2012

Sage Honey and Almond

We’re at the peak of harvest, and this is the time of year where we start diving more into the savory territory, putting our own sweet spin on the once a year local produce we get here. There are so many options its hard to choose, whether it be veggie or herb, or a combination of both. Sometimes its so overwhelming we need to step back and simplify in the wake of the bounty. Nuts and honey anyone? Yes. Throw in some sage? A perfect curveball.
From beginning to end the process is relatively simple, and totally rewarding

We don’t need to talk about how good this honey is a whole lot more, but we will becuase its that good. Its the difference between sweet, and incredible.

The honey was swirled into the cream as it went into the pints

The almonds were roasted ever so slightly, and tossed in a bit of salt.

Almonds were coarsely crushed and added in to be pervasive throughout.

The sage was roasted in the oven, a process similar to what we follow with fresh lavender, which mellows out the “perfumey” tastes, and intensifies the herb flavor. The leaves were ground and steeped into the base while hot, to fully infuse the sage flavor into the cream without leaving chunks of leaf to get caught in your teeth.

The end result is a light, sweet ice cream – sage providing a nice setup for the honey and almonds. A perfect summer cream, savory, but not really. Is that possible? As far as we’re concerned it is.

Want some? Leave a comment on our facebook page to be entered into the weekly drawing to win one of these two of a kind pints of craft ice cream. If you don’t have a facebook account, leave a comment right here on the blog. We’ll draw two winners on Friday afternoon (8/10/2012) 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 agree to give us a little feedback that can be shared with everyone else. Good luck!