Kieran

Raspberry Coulis

Raspberry CoulisWith raspberries in season, a great topping for ice cream is raspberry coulis. It’s tart and delicious and dead simple to make!

Murphys Raspberry Coulis

Ingredients:

  • Small punnet (125 gm) raspberries
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

What to do:

  1. Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food process and puree until smooth.
  2. Pass through a fine sieve using a rubber spatula or the back of a wooden spoon until only the seeds are left.
  3. Discard the seeds.
  4. Enjoy!

Yield: 150 ml coulis

It will last around 3 days if refrigerated, but I suggest you eat it straight away!

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10 Tips for a Great Fruit Salad

Fruit Salad It might be drizzling this morning, but for the last few days in Dingle, the sun has been blazing down and everybody’s spirits lifted. I bought a heap of fruit to go making fruit salad. I think there are few things I make at home that are quite as expensive, but there also are few things that taste as good on a summer’s day. Fruit salad can be eaten on its own, topped with cream, or poured over ice cream.

Here are some tips to making a great fruit salad:

  1. Use fruit you like!
  2. Make sure the fruit is ripe.
  3. Try to buy local fruit that is in season when ever possible. Nothing beats it!
  4. Choose fruit with a variety of colours to make the salad look its best.
  5. Mix up the textures a bit – smooth fruits, crunchy fruits, etc.
  6. Squeeze in the juice of a couple of lemons or limes. This will help keep the fruit from turning brown.
  7. Fruit salad closeupA tablespoon or two of cognac is a great addition!
  8. Letting the fruit salad sit for a few hours will greatly enhance the flavour, especially if you have put in some cognac. (It’s a good idea to leave it in the refrigerator).
  9. If you do add sugar, add less than you think you would need. The fruit salad will become a lot sweeter as it sits a while.
  10. Serve it in a glass dish for dramatic effect.

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Ice Cream Man Goes Flying

Aerial shot of Dingle When Colm, the farmer who supplies us with Kerry Cow milk and who owns the Dingle Corn Maze told me yesterday that he had hired a helicopter to take aerial photos of his maze and that there was a chance I could go up, I was excited indeed.

Strand Street from aboveToday he rang telling me the helicopter was on its way, and although I was in the middle of production, I dropped everything and headed over to the Skellig Hotel, which has a helipad. I’ve never been in a helicopter before, and was dying to take a look at Dingle from above.

What an experience! It was breathtaking. There should be someone offering helicopter tours of this area.

Conor and Sean with HelicopterThe best part was that I was able to bring along my nephew, Conor, who is mad about helicopters.

My brother Sean (right with Conor) wasn’t able to come up with us, but he was there when we landed, and Conor was speechless with excitement.

What a great day!

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Caramelised Fructose

Caramelised Fructose Fructose is a sugar found in fruit among other things, and is often recommended for diabetics because it has a very low glycemic index (GI). It is three times sweeter than normal sugar (sucrose) and has a slightly different taste – a little fruity or acidic.

I must say that there is mixed research on the health benefits of fructose. In fact, there are those who consider it quite unhealthy. Perhaps it’s like many things – use it in moderation.

What I do know for sure is that fructose can be caramelised. I’ve been playing around with it, and it makes an extraordinarily beautiful and tasty caramel sauce. It’s very, very sweet, so definitely use very small amounts of it, especially if you’re diabetic!!!

If you want to make it, here’s how:

Caramel sauce fructoseFructose Caramel Sauce

Ingredients:

50g powdered fructose (I bought an organic box of it from my local health food store)

150ml apple juice

What to do:

  1. Put the fructose in a saucepan and shake it so it’s evenly dispersed.
  2. Pour 50ml of the apple juice over it and cook over medium heat.
  3. When it starts to brown, start stirring, and continue stirring until it turns a deep honey colour.
  4. Immediately remove from the heat and stir in the rest of the apple juice.
  5. It will still be very hot. Let it cool.

That’s all! Enjoy!

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New Website and Italian in Limerick

Murphys Ice Cream Website Things are getting quite crazy here in the world of ice cream as we really enter the height of high season! Bad weather or not, we’re busy! Mind you, it seems that here in Dingle we’ve been spared the worst of the weather that has hit the East Coast of Ireland and the UK. We’ve had our sunny days!

Most of my time is spent keeping things going and trying to give our customers attention, but I’ve also managed to finish our new website (photo above). One thing I love about technology these days is that it has become much more democratic. There are so many tools out there that it’s not necessary to hire a webmaster or farm it out. So this time, we did it ourselves. Our site might not be perfect, but I’m happy with it, and it wasn’t even all that time-consuming… Ruth at Urru was asking about it, so here’s a link for the software we used. It cost a whopping $49…

Yesterday, my brother and I made a mad dash up the country for a meeting with our distributor, and on the way back we stopped for a quick snack at La Cucina in Castletroy, Limerick. Lorraine wasn’t there, but we met her mother, and this little place has a great vibe and a steady stream of visibly happy customers. There are all sorts of Italian goodies on the walls to take home as well. We didn’t have time to sample the coffee or tempting display of sweet things, but the pizza and pasta certainly helped us make it home safe to Kerry. Thanks, Lorraine!

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Irish Times Ice Cream Column

I just received confirmation that I will be writing a weekly column in the Irish Times for the month of August. It will be in the Friday issue, under special features. It came directly from this blog. Now… who says that blogging is a waste of time?

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Tea and Coffee Pops

Iced Tea Pop I realise that juice pops and frozen bananas are not, strictly, sugar free. Fruit does have sugar in it (fructose), although not refined. For those for whom fruit sugar is a problem, and for something slightly more adult, you can try making pops from coffee and tea. The flavour comes through quite well, and you can use your favourite sweetener if you feel it needs it. Herbal teas can work quite well (the photo above is a rose/licorice tea), but brew them quite strong!

Kids with ice pops

Back to juice pops – I wrote in my previous post that the kids in our family loved them. On the right is the proof – a photo showing my brother, sister and I enjoying them on a summer day in upstate NY.

Our favourite flavour was grape, but since my mother was usually faced with melted grape pop-stained clothes, she pushed us toward orange!

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