- [Announcer] "tasteMAKERS" is brought to you with support from Global Foods Market and Midwest Dairy.

(cheerful music) - Bold Spoon is an apt name for the ice creamery that you are about to visit.

Owner Rachel Burns has quickly expanded to owning her own farm, as well as building a production facility that can grow as the company grows.

(upbeat music) I'm Cat Neville, and for the past two decades, I've been telling the story of local food.

In that time, American food culture has exploded in tiny towns and big cities from coast to coast.

In "tasteMAKERS," I explore the maker movement, and take you along for the journey to meet the makers who define the flavor of American cuisine.

Wanna get creative with your ice cream?

Well, when we get back from our visit to Bold Spoon, I'm gonna show you how to make a chocolate layer cake with ice cream and red wine ganache.

(cheerful music) - We are in St. Francois County, specifically Park Hills, in Missouri.

We have a 57-acre farm, Bold Spoon farm.

We're surrounded by gardens, fields, little baby orchard, and our production kitchen.

We started our business in May of 2020, but if you go back a bit further than that, it started as a mistake.

So the mistake was, I planted mint in our garden, and it completely took over, I mean completely.

And so we were looking for things to do with it.

We were making mojitos.

We stopped watering it, it grew more.

So then I thought, mint ice cream, I'll make mint ice cream.

And that's what I did.

So I had a Cuisinart machine, I dusted it off, looked for some recipes, and then people would come over in the summer, and I'd give them mint ice cream.

And then I just started experimenting, and you know, thinking of different flavor combinations.

I mean, I'd like walk through the grocery store, and I would say, "Oh, I wonder how that would be in ice cream.

I wonder how that would be in ice cream."

And then I just told my husband like, I need to make this a business or stop, like this is absurd how much time I'm spending.

So we were ready to go in March of 2020, then the pandemic hit.

(gentle music) Initially my business plan was to sell to restaurants, but you could imagine you have a restaurant in the beginning of the pandemic, you're maybe doing curbside.

You're probably closed, though, most likely.

So me approaching them and say, "Hey, what do you think about carrying my new ice cream?"

probably wasn't going to work.

But I was really anxious to get it going.

And I knew that, you know, pivoting in motion would be easier than pivoting just standing still.

So to me, the pivoting in motion meant I just gotta start making it, and then I just have to start finding a way for people to eat it.

(gentle classical music) I made several batches, loaded up a cooler with dry ice, and I prepackaged it in little single servings, and then just gave it away to my neighbors.

I would put it on their doorstep, ring the doorbell, and then run back to the street, and I'd say, "Hi, my name's Rachel.

I live around the corner.

You know, we just started this business.

I wanted to share it with you, and if you love it, you could order it."

And later that day, we got an order, but just enough that you're like, maybe this will work.

And then we started with the Farmer's Market, Tower Grove Farmer's Market.

From there I had a little local press, so that was super helpful.

And then grocery stores, and then the stadium.

And now here.

(Rachel laughs) - Rachel's ice cream truly is farm-to-bowl, because she's growing much of her own fruit and herbs right here on her own farm.

You get the farm right about the same time that you decide to go all in with the ice cream brand.

- [Rachel] Yep.

- And obviously you have 57 acres.

This is a very large farm.

It's not just what you're seeing right here.

- Yes.

- [Cat] Your husband, Cory, he grew up on a farm.

- He did.

- So he had knowledge about like how to plant different trees, and fruits, and all this kind of fun stuff.

But from like a flavor standpoint, how did you decide what you wanted to grow?

- We just look at what would grow well in our region, what's kind of like a little bit different that maybe others don't have, and then we get at it.

So one thing that we didn't actually plant, but we have an abundance of here, is wild blackberries.

All of the tree lines that you see are lined with wild blackberries, and we have sweet corn just over there.

We milk the corn and then add that to our sweet cream base.

So that's kind of the whole body of it.

And then just make a blackberry sauce and swirl it in.

I love it.

And it's so fun that we have all of this to play with.

- [Cat] That sounds amazing.

- Yeah.

(cheerful music) My idea or vision, which we have carried out, is to have more kind of, I'll call them adult-centric type flavors.

We have like our goat cheese and fig, brie and spiced honey.

We have a roasted peach now, coffee with Irish cream.

Many of our flavors are approachable to kids, and they love them, but you won't find, you know, like neon green or pink or things like that.

We don't use food colorings.

We don't use artificial flavors.

It's just real flavors, real ingredients.

- So this is the Mythical Mint.

(Rachel laughs) This is the rogue herb that kind of started it all.

- Yes.

- And Rachel, you actually planted this in the ground in your garden.

- I know, and looking at it, it seems so ridiculous that I did that.

(Cat laughs) I had no idea.

I mean, people said, "Do not do it."

And I thought, "Well, they don't really know what they're talking about."

Clearly they knew what they were talking about.

- [Cat] Well, it's a good thing you didn't listen to them, because if you hadn't planted a ridiculous amount of mint, and then had an overabundance, then none of this would've happened.

- [Rachel] Agreed, agreed.

- And I love that you're growing a lot of the stuff that you end up putting in the ice cream just a few steps outside of the door.

- Yes, and same day, you know, we basically cut this, wash it, and then steep it.

So it's like there's an hour between cutting it and using it.

- Well, and that's why it's so fragrant and intense in the flavor, because I mean, if you just touch this, and then smell your hand, it is like this fresh, beautiful, clean mint aroma, which you cannot replicate with extracts that have the green food coloring.

- That, for us, has been really important just to keep it very clean, really great ingredients.

So we have three people here that work on production.

We always look at what we're doing, kind of making it more efficient, you know, taking their feedback, and my feedback, and really kind of honing our process, so we're able to keep up with all the stores, and keep up with the stadium, and keep up with catering with the space that we have.

And they do an amazing job.

And it's so funny because everyone, when they come here, I think they expect like a big like Ben and Jerry's level facility or something, but I'm like, no, it's just (laughs) us in our kitchen, and it works great.

- The three of you, you've kind of become a tight-knit group working together here, haven't you?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, you're creating something that makes people smile, and you get to go out onto the farm, harvest things, (chef laughs) and play with the chickens, I'm sure.

- [Chef] Yes, for sure.

(chicken clucking) - [Cat] Today, you're gonna be making lemon curd.

Take me through it.

- You melt down butter first, and then once you are melting that down, you get all the other ingredients together.

Once you prepare that, you mix it together with eggs, and just cook it to a certain temperature.

- There's a art, but also, you have to pay attention to ratios.

You have to pay attention to things like heat transfer, the changes of states of matter, I mean, all of those are in ice cream.

We have field trips here, where we do like math and science of ice cream making.

We do small business fundamentals field trips and use our business experience as kind of the backdrop for the conversation.

We, you know, kind of break them up into groups.

I give them problems to solve, and then you know, there's a spokesperson.

It's really, really a fun thing.

- So one of the things that Rachel focuses on is kinda like bringing high school kids in to teach them about the science of making ice cream.

So when you first started here, was it kind of the same thing where you had to learn the science before she would let you loose on, you know, actually making the ice cream?

- Yeah, I remember not really knowing how much stuff went into like making ice cream and like the reasons behind it.

It was pretty interesting to learn about the way the ingredients come together, and the temperatures they need to reach, and just all the food safety stuff that I didn't really think about before, so.

- And now you know.

- [Abby] Yes.

(all laugh) (people chatting) - Rachel's first retail location was here at Tower Grove Farmer's Market, which is full of hungry people who are looking for a taste of local food.

(upbeat music) - Everything that I eat, I wanna know where it's coming from.

I wanna know the growers.

It brings a closer relationship to nutrition, and to understanding how beautiful it is to eat in season.

And I know that experience in my own home.

And to share that with other people is probably my biggest passion.

Bold Spoon, they came to us in 2020, and they did so well that they came back after buying a farm, and then using things from their farm to put in their ice creams.

And then on top of that, they did this Tower Grove Farmer's Market series where they would buy things from different vendors, like peaches and switch grass, booze, and put it together in ice cream, like perfect.

So good.

So I love them and I love what they do.

(upbeat music) - So Tower Grove Farmer's Market was really the first place that you did retail.

- Yes.

The vibe is spectacular, because for one, everyone is here to support local.

They're in a good mood.

I mean, who comes to a farmer's market and is like...?

(Cat laughs) No one.

It just doesn't happen.

- Especially if they're eating ice cream.

- Seriously, and people are here with their dogs.

The playgrounds are full.

It's just really kind of like the best St. Louis has to offer.

- So you obviously grow a lot of your own herbs and fruit on your farm, but you also source from the market.

- We absolutely do, so about four booths up, there's Friedel Family Farms.

We get our peaches from them.

We use a local roaster for our coffee.

So it really is spectacular for a ton of reasons.

- I mean, it's great, from a product standpoint.

It's local, it's fresh.

- [Rachel] Yes.

- But from an economic standpoint, it keeps the dollars local, but you're also supporting the success of other folks who are small business owners.

- Yes, we do try to cross-pollinate a ton, and cross-promote each other.

It's fun to do, it's easy to do.

It's the right thing to do.

(upbeat music) (people chatting) So Gerard Craft is an amazing chef, and I'm sure pretty much everyone knows that, but he is the chief flavor officer of the CITYPARK Stadium.

The great thing about this stadium, it's one of the only stadiums that has a real expressed intent on having a food experience.

And it was his job to curate that food experience.

And we were lucky enough to be chosen to be a vendor within the stadium.

(upbeat music) - What we were looking for was not the thing you see splashed on the newspaper every day.

We wanted small, independent operators.

Rachel's been amazing to work with from the beginning, very driven, knows exactly what she wants, one of the most level-headed operators that we have, which is hard to find in the restaurant industry.

And we love having her and her team here.

(upbeat music) - I love soccer.

My son, he's now 25, but started playing it as soon as he could walk, and I never thought that taking him to the YMCA soccer camp, and then one day, I'd be here.

I mean, it's been so fun.

(audience cheering) The energy is unlike anything that I've seen.

(upbeat music) Today, we'll probably have 500 people come to our booth, which typically would not happen if I wasn't here.

Partnership with other restaurant partners as well has been a really very positive experience.

It really is an amazing environment.

(audience cheering) In any given match, we have three or four flavors, and just kind of roll through our menu of options.

We have a flavor called City Red and Blue, which is fresh strawberry base, with strawberries from our farm, with a blueberry balsamic sauce with blueberries from a neighboring farm.

- Bold Spoons farm-to-stadium approach is really amazing, and it just, you know, speaks to tasting of a place, right?

When you eat that ice cream, it is a uniquely local experience, because the flavors are from here, the people are from here.

(audience cheering) And when people came to a City SC Match, we wanted them to see all of the diverse food offerings that we have around St. Louis to have money flowing right back into the community.

(upbeat music) - St. Louis has always been a fan of local.

I mean, I've lived here my whole life, and I've always known that to be true.

And I think COVID kind of made that more heightened, perhaps, than it was before.

And so just the breadth of the variety is amazing.

I mean, you have Filipino barbecue, amazing Mexican food.

There's something for everyone here.

So it's been very well-received and important in our community.

- This is really about kind of lifting everybody else up.

And it's about St. Louis, and I think everybody here on City SC is in it for a bigger picture, bigger purpose.

- Whoo!

♪ Let's go ♪ - [Cat] Now this is the time that I've been waiting all day for.

We get to eat ice cream.

(Rachel and Cat laugh) - Agreed.

So this is goat cheese and fig.

- Oh yay, I'm so glad we get to try this one, 'cause I'm so curious.

(cheerful music) - My mind always goes to, oh, I wonder how that would be in ice cream.

Sometimes it doesn't work, but sometimes it does.

And I think this is a- - Oh, wow.

- It worked.

So we use a local goat cheese, Baetje Farm.

They're like about 30 minutes from here, and it's our sweet cream base, and then make a fig jam, and swirl that throughout.

- You get like the crunch of the fig seeds, and the richness of the fig.

And then just a hint of that kind of like funky, awesome goat cheese.

- Yes.

The way we make our coffee with Irish cream, we steep the milk and cream, and a coffee from a local roaster, and then make our ice cream, and then just splash of Irish cream.

- You have the coffee flavor, but it doesn't read as coffee ice cream.

It's like super creamy.

I always love drinking like Bailey's or something like that.

- I do too, yes.

- [Rachel] When I'm like trimming the tree at Christmas time or something like that.

- So this is our vanilla creme brulee.

I was making a vanilla, and cooked it too long and burnt it, but it was great.

So I had to keep burning it to figure out what temperature to cook it to.

And that's how this came about.

And then to mimic the crunch of a creme brulee, we just caramelize sugar.

So it's just literally heating sugar on the stove top till it's like a nice amber brown, and then pouring it on parchment paper.

And then as we're extracting the ice cream, we just fold it in.

- You have the sweet creaminess of the custard.

- [Rachel] Yes.

- But then the complexity of that, like caramelized sugar.

That's delicious.

- Thank you.

This is the garden mint.

- [Cat] Yes.

- Where it all began.

So we steep our milk and cream with the fresh mint, just remove the mint leaves, and then make the ice cream.

- [Rachel] And it has the chocolate freckles.

- Mm-hmm.

Very, very thin strips.

- Mm-hmm.

The aroma that we had brushing our hands on the mint leaves is the flavor that is delivered in the ice cream, and it's just pure, natural.

There's nothing standing in the way.

(cheerful music) - [Rachel] So fun, because now, we have the space to try a lot of different herbs, a lot of different fruits, and just experiment, and see what happens.

- Once a month, Rachel hosts open houses here at the farm with games, fresh air, and of course, lots and lots of ice cream.

(people chatting) - I didn't want it to be that we're just making our ice cream here.

I actually wanted it to be like one cohesive kind of space, meaning that we grow a lot of the fruits and herbs that we could actually invite people into the space to enjoy the ice cream and understand where it comes from.

Oh, really?

Does she love it?

- She loves it.

- So much of what you do is obviously retail-based, and you see folks at the market, and you see folks at the soccer stadium, but now you're welcoming them to your home.

- Yes, it is more than like just, you know, come get ice cream and then go.

It really is a experience.

We try to give them that, like someone you know was here at the last open house, and like, I really, really just like strawberry ice cream, but I'm gonna try brie and spiced honey.

- Which is way more challenging - Yes, yes!

- than the strawberry.

- But they did, and they loved it.

Yeah, so it's just fun, you know, try new things, and you know, we just have yard games out, and they kind of play, and they're welcome to walk around and look at the farm.

- [Cat] I mean, it's just kind of like an ice cream playground in a way.

- [Rachel] It is, yeah.

It's fun.

- And all of this started with you taking small packages up to your neighbor's doorsteps.

(Rachel laughs) - Yes.

- Ringing the doorbell, and because it was COVID, - I know.

- running away and just being like, "Maybe you could buy some."

- I know, it's so funny, because when I did this, my husband said, "Are you seriously doing this?"

I was like, I am.

(Cat laughs) I was like, I just have to start, and it was great, like I met neighbors I hadn't met before, just because of ice cream.

- That's wonderful.

- Yeah, it worked, it worked, so I would just say if people have crazy ideas, - [Cat] Just go for it.

- Just try it.

It is interesting how things have evolved from my mistake of mint to like the grocery stores in the stadium.

I've never worked harder ever, but I think if you're working hard and luck comes your way, then you're in a better position to kind of capitalize on it.

Sometimes things on their surface, you're like, "Oh, geez, I don't know how this is gonna work out."

But you just have to have faith.

And if it makes sense strategically, even if the timing isn't perfect, then I think you really need to kind of rise to the challenge, and figure it out, which is what we've tried to do.

(cheerful music) - So sometimes obviously you want a big bowl of ice cream, but there are really fun things that you can do with ice cream that you've picked up at the store.

And so I'm gonna show you how to make a chocolate pound cake that is layered with ice cream and a red wine chocolate ganache.

So I baked this cake yesterday, and that way, it's thoroughly cool.

All I'm gonna do is cut it into three layers, and then I'm going to take the pan, and line it with plastic wrap, so that it's easy to take it out of the pan when you take it out of the freezer.

(upbeat music) My first layer is in the pan, so let's head over to the stove.

I'm gonna make a red wine chocolate ganache.

Red wine and chocolate go beautifully together.

So I thought this would be a really fun addition to the cake.

And the red wine that I'm using is a Norton, which is like a deep, dark red wine.

And so I have a cup of heavy cream that I'm putting in my sauce pan.

And then I'm gonna add a half cup of this Norton.

All right.

While this is heating, I'm gonna go ahead and chop up eight ounces of semi-sweet chocolate.

Put that in my bowl with a pinch of salt, and four tablespoons of unsalted butter.

So our cream is at a boil.

Now all you do is pour it right on top of the chocolate.

It will melt the chocolate gently.

And so you just wanna kinda let it sit for a couple of minutes, and then stir it up, and then you're ready to use it.

At this point, all you have to do is assemble.

And I have some strawberries, because I think that the kind of like pop of the acidity of the strawberry against the rich chocolate, and then this cool creamy ice cream, it's gonna be super yummy.

So we have that layer.

Now to add the ice cream.

This is the coffee and Irish cream ice cream, and I chose that because it's gonna go really, really well with the coffee that is in that chocolate pound cake recipe.

So now I'm just gonna add one more layer, and do this all over again.

I've kind of pulled the plastic wrap around.

Now I'm just gonna cover it with some foil and stick it in the freezer.

And you wanna have it in the freezer for at least an hour so that all of these elements kind of firm up.

So in my bowl, I just have some heavy cream.

There we go.

Nice, stiff peaks.

Here's my magic of television version.

I made it yesterday.

So you'll notice obviously the pan is different, but the layers are the same.

(upbeat music) I'm gonna go ahead and cover it with my whipped cream.

Now I'm just gonna drizzle a little bit of this Norton chocolate ganache right on top.

I'm gonna pair this cake with a glass of the same Norton that I used to make the ganache.

And Norton is a Native American grape.

It is grown widely throughout the Midwest, and it has a jammy, very fruit-forward character.

It pairs beautifully with chocolate.

And if you want the recipe, everything is on our website.

Chocolate, coffee, strawberries, and red wine.

All of this is coming together in this very easy-to-make cake that is a delicious way to show off store-bought ice cream, as well as Norton Wine.

Alright, cheers.

I'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) Connect with us online at wearetastemakers.com or through social media on these handles.

- [Announcer] tasteMAKERS is brought to you with support from Global Foods Market and Midwest Dairy.

(gentle music) (dramatic music)