Fall Flavor of the Week: Beenut Butter Crunch

   In anxious anticipation for the leaves to fade to golds and reds and browns and fall from their canopy homes to garnish the lawns and sidewalks, which we traverse to class everyday, I have decided to pay tribute to my favorite season with flavors that evoke such feelings and responses as the cool, crisp weather and rustic colors so do.

   This week I created an ice cream inspired by a pie, which I saw in a magazine. When I saw the recipe, my mouth watered; and I then knew that I had to recapture that flavor in frozen form. And thus, Beenut Butter Crunch was contrived.

Beenut Butter Crunch - smooth, creamy peanut butter ice cream swirled with fudge and studded with crunchy honey comb

   As I have stated many times before, Peanut Butter ice cream is my ultimate favorite--it's what I fill out in response to those 'Last Meal On Earth' questions. However, until I made my own, I was left in a depressing state of want for better peanut butter flavor in my ice creams. I found none that captured that potent, salty flavor I so desired--the potency which gives you that burn in your throat as you eat it (ask any Shirey about that peanut butter burn and they'll tell you all about it). And that is what, in turn, lead me to begin creating my own peanut butter flavors.
   Unlike most ice cream duds, I add salt to my peanut butter base, otherwise it loses that real peanut flavor (that 'burn'). This creates a whole new experience with my ice creams; reduce the sugar, and increase the ingredients that matter, the ones that get at the realness of what flavor recreation is all about.

   I homemake everything that I possibly can. So, naturally, I had to create my own fudge sauce recipe. I wanted it to be thick, pungent, and fudge-y, not a basic chocolate sauce. I used brown sugar instead of white sugar, which I thought captured a completely different flavor base; cocoa; corn syrup; heavy cream; and a...pinch of salt...Oh?! After this melted together, I added butter and quality bitter-sweet chocolate, not that cheap waxy stuff. In contrast with most other recipes I've seen, I refused to add vanilla to my fudge sauce. What's with this ceremonial addition of vanilla in everything? What does it do? I don't add vanilla in anything that isn't supposed to be vanilla flavored. I was rewarded with a thick, dark, fudge that had a bitter-sweet flavor. Just what I wanted.
 
   What I was most looking forward to was the honey comb. I did not buy real honey comb, though that would have been really cool, and I highly doubt that honey comb can be found anywhere in Tuscaloosa. "What's Honey Comb?" I can hear them say. Well, you might find it at Homegrown Alabama on Thursday nights. Regardless, I made my own. Yeah, I did. I can't? I did.
   After looking over the recipe, I realized it was identical to making a 'brittle'. Sugar, corn syrup, honey, and baking soda. Boom. Boil it, let it expand (when the baking soda is added it gets feisty), pour it out, and let it harden.
   I am going to show you something. But don't jump out of your seat. You might think it's weird/frightening/alive, or like something the Ghostbusters would tackle down in a sewer somewhere.

 

   It was actually rather good. In fact, it was the key element to this ice cream being labeled as "better than my Salted Caramel" by 90% of those who had both. I was worried about making another flavor in the shadow of such a huge hit with Salted Caramel, but apparently I "knocked it out of the park" as they say.

"It was a smashing hit with the ladies" - Phil Deaton

"This is unbelievable. Is this real?" - Jake Reynolds

"Reese, I believe you have outdone Salted Caramel" - Joe Ziegler

  The proof is in the magic. And the magic is in the ice cream.

   The flavors worked exceptionally well with each other, all three highlighting their own uniqueness, but also accenting on the strengths and tastes of the others. The salty-sweetness of the peanut butter matched well with the fudge, obviously (peanut butter and chocolate is the best combination since Earth and Oxygen), but it went perfectly with the sweet, sweet honey comb. After eating the ice cream, Joe Ziegler pondered about what he was tasting that was so unique in the pint. I let him try some leftover honey comb, and he immediately said it was the X-Factor. It was super crunchy, like brittle, and added huge, unique flavor to the creamy peanut butter base.

  I am most assuredly going to make this flavor again, though not sure when. It will definitely be set in the Flavor Bank for future Scoop Shop usage.

  Thanks to all those who tried it, and thank you for your helpful, generous, praising comments about my ice cream. I love to share my creations with you, and I look forward, with eager anticipation, to next week's flavor. Until then,

Reese O'Shirey, Esquire

Flavor of the Week: Parent Trap

Each week I will be posting a newly created flavor, or my own version of a traditional favorite. I create, make, and churn all my own ice creams, using nothing but milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and add-ins (i.e. peanut butter).

In producing a flavor, I try to conjure up an original name, a name that will be unique to the flavor, a name that creates a backbone with its meaning or nostalgic history for me.

This week I chose 'Parent Trap'. When I was a child, Disney produced a remake of the '61 classic "Parent Trap," casting Lindsay Lohan, who we have all come to love and admire, and her clone as the twin sisters to play the main role. My siblings and I watched this movie often, but one thing I gleamed from the campy movie changed my life forever. In a scene when the two Lohans are in isolation at camp, they begin eating Oreos. But not just Oreos, mind you; Oreos smeared with peanut butter. I had never thought of this before; it wrought a connection, a fusion of two worlds of tasty desserts of which I frequently indulged myself. It was a perfect combination.

Over a decade later, it struck me. I had to tape into that etherial combination of chocolate and peanut butter. And in doing so, I berthed one of the greatest ice creams to date. As you might be able to deduce, my 'Parent Trap' contains peanut butter and Oreos, but it is far more than that. In the thought process of such a creation, I mused over possibilities and flavor combinations. But it proved simple: the chocolate and peanut butter must be of equal value; one must not have residency or supremacy over the other. And this is where many of the art go awry: they allow one flavor to control too much of the overall flavor. I say "nay". Thus, I decided upon it: rich chocolate ice cream ribboned with smooth, creamy peanut butter, and layered with crunchy, chocolatey Oreo cookies.

I have never been one to praise chocolate ice creams. That is because all I have ever had are the the store bought brands that use cheap chocolate that has no depth or balance in their ice creams. In creating my chocolate base, I first create my own chocolate, molten and decadent, by combining cream with a blend of Dutch cocoa and mildly dark chocolate. This chocolate blend is then added to a personally pasteurized mixture of milk, sugar, and eggs. And viola! A balanced, blended chocolate base unlike any found in stores or local ice cream shops (Coldstone? My take on that shop in the near future) creates the canvas to which I can perfectly paint peanut butter pathways.

Peanut butter, for me, is a way of life. It is more than a food, or an item spread over bread. It is a daily, if not meal-y, consumption. Therefore, I go to great lengths to master its presence in ice cream. After I whip up a bowl of my sweetened peanut butter, I liberally layer it in the chocolate base, and it then becomes a frozen river of salt renting its way through a land of sweetened creation. And that's what it is all about. The coexistence, the rivalry, the harmony of salty and sweet. And as I alluded to earlier, I make them equals, so that neither has triumph, nor is shadowed. In my ice cream you will find in each bite the mirthful presence of sweetened chocolate yet simultaneously be pricked by its salted rival, peanut butter.    

Last of all is the special guest referee: Oreo cookie. Instead of chopping up Oreos wholly, I carefully remove the cream (because it is just puffed sugar and doesn't do well or taste good in ice cream), and only use the dark chocolate cookie sides. With these I create a crust, a layer, a gravel road that paves its way over the vast lands of chocolate, and bridges the breadth of the rivers of peanut butter. It adds that oh-so-desired "crunch", the likes of which can not be mimicked or faked. A crunch in ice cream adds another dimension, by detouring from the prevalent creaminess, that enhances the already enjoyable experience.

The first time I made a batch of this it proved to be the best to date, and promised to become a future classic. This was three months ago (March). In April, I walked into Target, and my legs, as if by their own volition, made a direct course for the freezer section. It is a habit I have. Whenever I go into a store or shop that carries frozen goods, I always check their ice cream selection even if I've been in there and checked it countless times (as in the case with this Target). But that day I found something new. Ben&Jerry's had just released four flavors as apart of their aid of Japan relief efforts and support of volunteerism. But one flavor struck me: "Peanut Butter World". I read the description: Milk Chocolate Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Swirls and Chocolate Cookie Swirls. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought the same thing. Cursing my misfortune of Ben and Jerry hitting main stream with the flavor first, I purchased one. The name is something of a clever pun though. Here, the word 'Butter' is in place of the word 'Better', leading to the phrase "(peanut)Better World" achieved through volunteerism. Nevertheless, it was a good flavor, one of their better ones (I won't do a review of it in this present blog, but I might in the future), and an exact replica of the one I had churned out a month prior. Oh well, thus are the plagues of us smaller-batch makers. I must press on.

If you would like to see more pictures of the ice cream and flavors I create, then here have a look. It's just something I've put together for my experiments. The extra I put into pints for some friends.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments. Thanks for reading.