Ice Cream Week Wrap-up

Ice Cream Week Wrap-up

Well, this week has been an interesting one, here at MDF…who would have ever thought that the trials and tribulations would be so overwhelming with a little local blog?  Every week we strive to bring the best we have to offer, blended with the best the valley has to offer, wrapped up in a pretty little package we call Modern Day Forager.

A novice to the food styling and photography world, (“recipe dude”) as I am called, can tell you, this blog is no small undertaking.  When I suggested ice cream as a theme, (in my infinite wisdom, I thought that ice cream in the valley of the sun, in the dead of summer, sounded like a great idea) my partners, to their credit, didn’t bat an eye.

Sunday, our first day of shooting was a BIG disaster, to say the least.  Heat, sun, humidity, me reacquainting myself with making ice cream, my renewed ice cream skills and techniques (hadn’t made scratch ice cream in about 10 years), had devastating effects on our results.  I can tell you from personal experience, Traci and Heather can do the impossible and come together to make just about any photo look good but when these “oh no I’m melting” photos did not pass their litmus test, it was back to the kitchen for me, and we re-shot everything the following day and boy are we glad we did.  (Plenty of shots for out take week)

First up, was our chocolate stout ice cream, now my new favorite, because of it is rich chocolaty taste and creaminess.  For me, it coated my mouth in all of the right places and but had a slight bitter hoppy finish that lingered, which is just how I like my beer.  Next, we tackled Traci’s grown up take on the old-fashioned ice cream float.  The flavors were inspired by a close friend, brew master and Master Cicerone Brian Helton’s house made chocolate stout, that we tried about a year ago and still talk about to this day.

Number two on the list, was our figgy ice cream; we chose this one to bring one of our favorite fruits to the table and use the fig all the way from beginning to end.  In order to really bring out the fruits flavor we incorporated AZ Bitters Lab Figgy Pudding bitters and to fully appreciate the texture we added even more fresh figs for their seediness and complexity.  Bitters in ice cream, come on, oh yes, we did!!!

Number three, and our final ice cream was, pink peppercorn goat cheese.  We had to bring a savory ice cream into the mix that really exemplifies one of the things we like to do at urban table.  The goat cheese brings a mild delicate creaminess with a whole lot of tang, while the pink peppercorns bring a very slight peppery finish with the addition of floral notes.  We couldn’t just leave it alone, we had to push it a little farther, so we stirred in pieces of honey comb and drizzled honey in the batch for just the right amount of sweet and savory, it really pushed the boundaries and it became a winning combination for us.

To finish up this theme of ours, Heather took over the writing reins and shop girl, to introduced us to an old school ice cream machine, reminiscent of one she used as a child.  She shared the two books we read in preparation for ice cream week, both of which are great resources, (I am a big fan of the Humphry Slocombe book and took inspiration from it when writing the recipes), and finally she gave us a link to Joy cones, the perfect cone for our chocolate stout ice cream.

We sure hope you enjoyed this as much as we did!  Please send us your feed back here or on our facebook page.

Modern Day Forager