LegatoGelato
Smooth
Taste…Island Pace
Flavours
Boy do people have many ideas for
flavours for our gelato and some are very different. How does Maple Bacon
sound? Peanut Butter gelato? Pumpkin Pie?
Traditionally gelato is fruit flavour
with perhaps some wine or liquor in it. I feel that I am somewhat of a purist
and want to produce flavours that are in season and available locally. Not to
say that there isn’t great bacon around, it’s just not appealing.
One venue that I want to work with
local chefs on is making custom gelato for their restaurants. I have tasted
lavender ice cream at the Kingfisher Restaurant (it was a few years ago). It
went very well with the meal and had a lovely cleansing finish. I wouldn’t want
to eat a whole pint but in that time and place with that specific meal, it was
lovely. Perhaps a savory gelato or mango/tamarind.
Local chefs may have specific ideas,
flavours they want to have, and we are more than willing to experiment and make
a goat’s milk gelato that fits the bill.
I am having lots of fun experimenting
with different mixtures and flavours. A bit more sugar, a bit less, more lemon
juice or less, more fruit, different
processes to the fruit to get the best flavour and texture. I think our
friends like taste testing as well.
Statistically the favorite ice cream
flavour is vanilla - almost 40% of consumers want vanilla. I think chocolate
and maple walnut are next and then strawberry.
We
plan to offer a local maple syrup with local walnuts in February/March of 2013.
There are a number of makers of big leaf maple syrup on Vancouver Island. For a
long time we were told it was impossible to make syrup from the big leaf maple
trees that grow in profusion on the Island. Seems some people didn’t listen and
have turned making syrup into a business – even the government and tax
assessment office are now recognizing “sap-sucking” as a legitimate farm
product. The different between Eastern sugar maples and Western big leaf maples
is the percentage of sugar in the sap. Eastern trees have 3% sugar in the sap
while Western has 2 % sugar content. What it means is that it takes more
cooking to evaporate the water out of the sap.
Walnut
trees grow well in our climate. We have a young Carpathian Walnut in our
orchard. It is about 15 years old now and over 20 feet high and wide. The
number of walnuts has increased steadily, starting with four nuts when it was
around 7 years old. Last year was very poor with a long cold spring – not many
nuts or much fruit set. This year looks much better.
We will be offering WILD NETTLE as an
interesting and novel flavour when we start selling at the farmer’s markets. We
are wild harvesting stinging nettles, making a tea, making a syrup from the tea
and adding it to our yummy French custard base (sans sugar). It is fresh and
green and a bit tart and tangy. Make sure you try a sample!
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