Kieran

Ice Cream Cookies

This year, for the Dingle Food and Wine Festival, we’re not going gourmet with some of the unusual flavour arrays we’ve done in the past. Instead, we’re going to do something that’s very delicious and simple – ice cream cookies!

We’ll serve them with a glass of Kerry cow milk that we’ll get straight off our farmer and pasteurise. We’ll also do a mini Kerry cow milkshake.

I hope those of you who make it to the festival enjoy it, and I do hope you’ll make it. It’s really one of the best times to be in Dingle, and there’s certainly no shortage of things to do and eat!

If you want to make these ice cream sandwiches at home, here’s how to do it:

Murphys Ice Cream Cookies

1. Make my chocolate chip cookie recipe (here).

2. Wait until the cookies are cool.

3. Spread a half scoop of vanilla ice cream (we’ll use Kerry cow ice cream, but vanilla is close!) on the flat side of one cookie.

4. Spread a half scoop of chocolate ice cream (or dark chocolate ice cream) on the flat side of a second cookie.

5. Press the two cookies together.

6. Put them in the freezer to harden (if the ice cream is too soft, it will be much harder to eat it).

7. Enjoy!

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Children’s Book for an Ice Cream Lover?

I just came across this on-line, Dingle, the Helpful Ice Cream Cone Delivery Dog, by Audrey Kinsella. What’s not to like? Dingle, ice cream, and dogs. The author is living with M.S. and it’s a book about someone with a disability accepting help. Seems like a winner to me.

There is a Mr. Behind the Lavazza

Today, I met Giuseppe Lavazza, who is Vice President and Marketing Director for the family business. He was in Dublin to launch the Modo Mio in Brown Thomas. I was interviewing him for the Irish Times, as part of a piece on 3rd Wave coffee. It was an good chat, and it was interesting to discuss trends in coffee culture, sustainability and the return to tradition (albeit with more science). More on that later!

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Filter Coffee – Back and Beautiful

With help and inspiration from Colin Harmon, we’ve be playing around with single-serve filter coffee in our Wicklow Street shop in Dublin, and we’ll roll it out soon in Kerry.

I’ve always thought an americano is not a good drinking coffee – basically it’s a watered down espresso, and it tends to be both bitter and watery. We used to offer French press – plunger – coffee to customers for drinking purposes, but it never really caught on.

The single filter above is a brilliant way to highlight the different properties of the various beans we’re getting our hands on – brewing a cup is a bit of a slow process, but the rewards in terms of drinking are great.

One of the best things about it is that we can also teach customers how to make it at home!

For tips and more on making a good filter coffee, see here, here, here, and here.

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A Few Go Out, a Few Come In

 One of the trickiest parts of our business is the following conflict/contradiction:

People always want new ice cream flavours, but they also hate losing flavours they like.

We’re always asked what’s new, and at the same time we’re asked constantly to bring back ice creams we’ve made, sometimes ten years ago – “Would you ever make more of that licorice and vodka ice cream I loved so much?” Some of the flavours are really best left relegated to the ice cream dust bin of history (in some cases that’s where most of the batch ended up anyway, since so few people liked it). In other cases, we do bring back flavours, such as coffee (below), at least on a temporary basis, if there is enough clamour.

In any case, this is just a lead in to the fact that we’re going to change four flavours very soon, so get them while you can! Two of them (sea salt and burnt caramel) have really resonated with many customers. However, it’s time to freshen things up a bit, so here’s what’s going to happen:

Out: Sea salt, burnt caramel, Kilbeggan whiskey, mango sorbet.

In: Real lavender, caramelised honey, lemon sorbet, coffee.

We hope you’ll enjoy the new flavours, and if you really, really miss the ones we’re removing, let me know…

Mary’s Cake

Camphill is a worldwide network of communities for people with special needs, and it’s an organisation that’s dear to my heart, since I have seen on many occasions the good work they do. Since Ireland has a very strong group of communities, we’ve always wanted to find a way to help them in some way (not just the odd fundraiser we have done in Dingle).

I spoke recently with Camphill Greenacres in Dublin, and they said they would love it if we could employ one of their special needs people a couple of mornings a week. Done! Above is Mary, and she is a very special person indeed. She’s personable and warm, and I’m delighted to say she’ll be with us in our Wicklow Street shop on Tuesdays and Friday mornings.

What was especially warming to my heart was that she arrived this Tuesday with a carrot cake she had baked herself in the Camphill kitchens (we’ll give them a donation for each cake). So, hopefully we’ll not only have Mary, but we’ll have Mary’s cake as well!

I hope if you come in that you’ll make her feel welcome, and also that you’ll try a piece of her cake. She’s very, very proud of it.

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Lola Likes Sorbet

This is Lola, who I met in Dingle today. She likes sorbet. Raspberry sorbet, in fact. I’ve never met a dog before who likes sorbet, even though our own Ivan is fond enough of ice cream. He’d never stand on two legs for it, though, and he’d never touch sorbet.

There’s just no accounting for taste!