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Local Ice Cream Maker Does Good |
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Written by Story by Nevada Home Staff Photos by Mike Herzog
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Thursday, 11 June 2009 |
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When you spoon into a pint of locally made Tahoe Creamery ice cream —rich Tahoe Flow Cookie Dough, say, or lush Tahoe Dream Vanilla Bean or bracing Tahoe Trip Mint Chip—you’re spooning into history.
The family of Greg Hoch, Tahoe Creamery’s founder and president, has been involved in dairy farming and crafting ice cream since 1948 at the Shady Glen Dairy farm and stores in Connecticut, among the most beloved spots for ice cream in the Northeast.
Hoch himself has been making ice cream more than 30 years, and he’s a graduate of the prestigious Ice Cream Short Course at Pennsylvania State University’s creamery. In 2000, Hoch packed up his family (daughters Victoria and Samantha are third-generation ice cream makers) and his recipes, and moved to Northern Nevada to continue clan tradition. One of Hoch’s bigger challenges was converting all of the family recipes used over the last fifty years to all-natural ingredients. But he’s managed to do it, and each time he converts a recipe, he calls up his dad and shares the ingredients with him for the family business back in Connecticut.
Hoch started small, with just a few accounts, and from the beginning, he said, “I wanted to make ice cream the way we always had, ice cream that doesn’t taste like chemicals, like stuff from old, giant ice cream factories.”
Tahoe Creamery’s ice cream is made in small batches, which allows for rigorous quality control. Hoch and his team use fresh, natural ingredients like real fruit, real chocolate and dairy products from Reno’s Model Dairy. The butterfat content of the ice cream is almost 15 percent, an extraordinarily high level that helps create its signature, luscious texture.
Tahoe Creamery has developed a reputation for combining these ingredients into inventive, sometimes wacky, but always delicious flavors. The creamery’s 36 or so current flavors, some of which change weekly or seasonally, include Tahoe Tessy Mudpie Messy (after the lake’s mythical plesiosaur), Tahoe Crunch Peanut Butter Munch, and Tahoe Pistachio Grizzly Mustachio.
Unlike big brands of mass produced ice cream, which can be stacked for months in icy warehouses, Tahoe Creamery’s pints are produced close to the time consumers buy them.
“The ice cream is made—at most—two weeks before people taste it,” Hoch said, “and often, that time window is even smaller. It’s better because it doesn’t sit and sit.”
Tahoe Creamery’s 2,000-square-foot Minden plant produces about 12,000 pints a month. The plant features gleaming freezers and hoppers and ice cream makers and a nifty automated pint-filling system. Hoch specifically commissioned the pint machine from a Minnesota manufacturer and because he is the first person to use one, is writing the instruction manual for the unique equipment. At the same time, part of Tahoe Creamery’s appeal is its artisanal, mom-and-pop ethos, and much of the work is still done by hand.
“It’s hard work, too,” said Hoch, who uses a favorite old, bent butter knife to trim extra ice cream when it hangs from the filler tubes.
In the last two years, Hoch took on a business partner and local investors who have provided money and expertise to help Tahoe Creamery with new franchises, new flavor planning, and expansion to Sacramento or even perhaps China (with a billion potential ice cream lovers).
But with all that, Tahoe Creamery isn’t about to become an anonymous, corporate ice cream behemoth.
“Never,” Hoch said. “We’re proud to be a local company that got its start with local folks. The ice cream will always come first.”
Following are some of Hoch’s favorite recipes to pair with Tahoe Creamery ice cream. J
Flourless Chocolate Cake with Tahoe Flow Cookie Dough Ice Cream
• 16 ounces (1 pound) of semisweet chocolate, chopped
• ½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 5 large eggs
• 1 pint Tahoe Creamery Tahoe Flow Cookie Dough Ice Cream
1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Put chocolate and butter in a heat-proof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water and melt, stirring often (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water).
3. While the chocolate and butter mixture is cooling, butter your pan and line with parchment. Then butter the parchment.
4. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two separate medium bowls.
5. Whip the egg whites in a medium bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
6. With the same beater, beat the egg yolks together.
7. Add the egg yolks to the cold chocolate and butter mixture.
8. Fold one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate and butter mixture and follow with remaining two-thirds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.
9. Pour batter into prepared pan. The batter should fill the pan ¾ of the way full. Bake at 375°F.
10. Bake for 25 minutes until the top of the cake looks like a brownie. A cake tester will appear wet. If you have an instant read thermometer, it should read 140°F.
11. Cool cake on a rack for about 10 minutes and then unmold.
12. While the cake is cooling, take out a pint of Tahoe Creamery Tahoe Flow Cookie Dough Ice Cream and let it soften.
13. Once the cake is cool enough to take out of the mold, put Tahoe Creamery Tahoe Flow Cookie Dough Ice Cream on top of it. Note, if the cake is still warm, that is fine.
Ice Cream Pie
• 1 pie crust
• 1 cup flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup molasses (unsulphured)
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 pint Tahoe Creamery Tahoe Dream Vanilla Bean Ice Cream or Tahoe Swell Cinnamel Ice Cream
1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. Mix flour, sugar, and butter in a medium-sized bowl. Mixture should look like crumbs. Set aside.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, mix molasses and boiling water. Once mixed, quickly stir in the baking soda.
4. Quickly pour the mixture into the pie crust.
5. Spread flour, sugar, and butter crumbs onto the top of the pie.
6. Bake at 425°F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375°F for an additional 15 minutes. Pie should still have patches of lightly browned bare crumbs, with bigger areas that have been colored by the molasses.
7. Remove from the oven and cool.
8. Once cool, slice pie and serve with a scoop of Tahoe Creamery Ice Cream on top.
Tahoe Flight Blueberry Delight Ice Cream Sandwich
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups heavy cream
1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Add the heavy cream and mix.
3. Place mixture in an ungreased 8-inch square pan and bake until golden (18 to 20 minutes).
4. Remove shortcake from pan and place on rack to cool slightly. Cut into 6 pieces, and split each piece in half horizontally.
5. Spoon some Tahoe Creamery Tahoe Flight Blueberry Delight Ice Cream onto the bottom shortcake piece. Put the top shortcake piece on top of the ice cream to make a sandwich.
6. If desired, top with some whipped cream. |
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