Ice Cream Ireland

Just thought I’d do something a little different…

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Here’s a fruit tart we’ve been making for our shops. It’s a pretty basic recipe, especially if you can buy in the tart shells (otherwise there’s a recipe for pie dough here). We make the tarts in single serving size, but there is no reason it couldn’t be a full pie.

Ingredients:

25 gr sugar
175 gr ground almonds
225 gr butter
4 eggs
50 gm flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Raspberry jam
Raspberries, blueberries, or other berries you have to hand.
Powdered sugar, for dusting.

What to do:

1. Coat bottom of the tart (or pie) shells with a thin layer of raspberry jam.

2. Beat the sugar and butter together until smooth.

3. Add the ground almond and continue mixing.

4. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

5. Mix in the flour.

6. Use a piping bag or spoon to spread the frangipane (almond mixture) in to the tart shells.

7. Press in the berries.

8. Bake at 150C for about half an hour, or until the frangipane looks lightly brown.

9. Dust with powdered sugar.

Technorati tags: berry, tart, baking, pastry, recipe

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I promised a customer, who loved this tart, that I would post the recipe. It’s closely based on a recipe from Simply Sensational Desserts by Francois Payard, with the only difference a slight modification in the sugar. I have found that Payard’s book has given me the greatest baking success of any cookbook, so I highly recommend it.

With any tart or pie baking, the hardest part is usually the dough, and so if you want to make this the quick and easy way, buy a pie shell or some tart shells from your local supermarket. Some of them are quite tasty, and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble. If you do want to make the dough yourself, you can find Payard’s recipe here but make sure you have flour without raising agents!

Anyway, once you have the pie shells, whether you make or buy them, you’ll find this is one of the easiest recipes in the world!!!

Lemon Tart

Ingredients:

3 Lemons
45 gm butter
3 eggs
10 small pie tart crusts, or one large pie crust
130 gr sugar

What to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 150 C.
2. Bring water in double boiler to simmer.
3. Zest andjuice the lemons.
4. Put lemon and eggs in top of double boiler (before putting over heat) and whisk until smooth. Add the sugar and butter.
5. Cook in double boiler until the butter has melted and the mixture is smooth.
6. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
7. Pour into pastry shells.
8. Bake for 8 minutes, or until the centre has become solid.
9. Decorate with a slice of lemon, or with some drizzled chocolate, as I have done.

Technorati tags: lemon, tart, cooking, pastry, recipe

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Since we’ve introduced waffles into our shops, we’ve been offering cake less often. However, in the days when we were selling lots of cake, Wiebke’s Fudge Cake was our best selling chocolate cake, and we still have it from time to time.

Its appeal is broad enough that you can serve it to grown-ups at any special occasion and be sure that it will go down a storm. For events with lots of smaller kids you could serve it cut in to little finger size pieces.

If you know that all of the people eating the cake prefer dark chocolate, simply substitute the 50% for 70% and satisfy those chocolate cravings!

It is perfect with vanilla ice cream.

This recipe was adapted by Wiebke (my brother’s wife) from a recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

Wiebke’s Fudge Cake

Ingredients

• 215 g butter – cut into pieces and slightly softened
• 15 g butter for greasing baking pan
• 400 g sugar
• 115 g 50% semi-sweet chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 275g non-rising plain flour
• 2 tsp. bread soda
• 250 ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp. vanilla essence

For the Ganache:

• 80gm butter
• 180gm 50% chocolate
• 180gm 70% chocolate
• 350ml cream

What to do:

1. Place the chocolate in a double boiler to melt.
2. Put the butter and sugar in the mixer and begin to mix.
3. Add eggs one by one by breaking into a plastic jug first and then adding to mixer.
4. Scrape the mix from the sides and bottom of mixing bowl.
5. Continue mixing.
6. Add the fully melted chocolate.
7. Continue mixing.
8. Combine flour and soda and sieve carefully.
9. Add ? of flour/soda and 125mls of buttermilk to the mix and mix on slow speed.
10. Add the next ? of flour/soda and final 125mls of buttermilk. Mix.
11. Add final ? of flour/soda and mix well.
12. Add 3 drops of “Massey” Vanilla.
13. With the dough now well mixed add 150mls of boiling water and continue mixing.
14. Grease and then lightly flour the bottom and sides of the baking pan.
15. Pour the dough mix into the baking pan.
16. Bake in preheated oven @ 180 °C x 45 minutes.
17. Remove baked cake from oven and flip upside down.
18. Leave to cool on cooling rack for at least 2-3 hours.

Making the ganache:

19. Melt 60 g butter in a double boiler.
20. Add 180 g of 70% & 180g of 50% chocolate to the double boiler and melt. Keep temperature to 35 – 45 °C
21.  Warm the cream in a saucepan.
22. Stir the warm cream into the melted chocolate, and keep stirring until smooth.

Decorating:

23. Carefully cut the cake horizontally twice, to make 3 layers. Cut into two if you have to.
24. Add the fudge sauce between the layers and on top.
25. Coat the fudge around the sides.
26. Decorate with chocolate shavings.

Note: I must admit I haven’t made this cake (leaving it to the expert always seemed a good idea to me!), so if you make it any feedback would be doubly welcome.

Technorati tags: ganache, fudge, chocolate, cake, recipe

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 I really like the combination of strawberry and meringue, especially for Valentine’s, and I’ve also posted a strawberry and meringue dessert option here. This time, I wanted to try heart-shaped, strawberry-flavoured meringues, to give out as treats in the shops this weekend. It worked quite well, although the colour wasn’t as pink as I had hoped. They are very tasty, though, and they look quite decorative as well.

In case you’re wondering, the boy in the photos is my nephew Ryan, who is here in Dingle from Germany, on his mid-term break. He loves cooking, and after a very small amount of instruction, he turned out to be quite proficient at the piping! 

Murphys Strawberry Mini Meringues 

Ingredients:

• 3 medium egg whites
• 130 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon strawberry coulis (recipe here, but leave out the sage!)

What to Do:

1. Preheat the oven to 100C.
2. Beat the egg whites in a dry glass or stainless steel bowl (if using an electric mixer, do this at medium speed rather than high speed, which will take a bit longer but give the meringues more strength) until foamy.
3. Add the lemon juice.
4. Continue mixing until they are fairly stiff.
5. Beat in the sugar in a slow stream.
6. Beat until very stiff and shiny.
7. Mix in the strawberry coulis.
8. Transfer to a piping bag and pipe out little hearts on a baking tray or silicone mat.
9. Bake for 60 minutes.
10. Cool on on the mat, then carefully twist to remove.
11. Store in an air-tight container.

Makes about 60 small hearts.

Notes:

1. If you want to make meringue nests, start in the centre, work out in a tight spiral, then build up the sides.
2. Please do follow my instructions about the mixing speed. If you mix them on high, the meringues will not be as strong and could develop unsightly bubbles.

Technorati tags: meringue, recipe, strawberry, dessert, baking

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 Here are some brandy snaps I made, and if you’re looking for an easy baking treat, it doesn’t get much easier than this. I rolled these, but you can also leave them flat. They are just as tasty! For good measure, I dipped mine in chocolate… I adapted the recipe from an old Cordon Bleu dessert book. 

Happy Christmas!

Brandy Snaps

Ingredients:

• 230 gm butter (room temperature)
• 230 gm sugar
• 230 gm flour
• 80 gm golden syrup
• 2 teaspoons ginger
• 1 tablespoon brandy

What to do:

1. Heat the oven to 180C and lightly grease a baking tray. 
2. Put the golden syrup, butter and sugar in a pan and cook over medium heat until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour, ginger, and brandy.
4. Put small, teaspoon portions on the baking pan, about four inches apart. I used a piping bag, which makes things easier, since the dough is a bit sticky.
5. Bake for 7 minutes, until golden brown. 
6. Remove and allow to cool on the baking tray for about five minutes before removing. 
7. That’s it!
8. If you want to roll them, as I did, butter the handle of a wooden spoon. After you remove the cookies from the oven, leave them for a minute or so (or they will fall apart), then wrap them around the spoon handle, holding them in place until they take the shape. 
9. If you want to dip them in chocolate, melt about 100 gm chocolate. Transfer to a small cup or bowl. Dip the cookies, and place on a non-stick baking sheet until they are dry. 

Makes about 40 cookies.

Technorati tags: cookie, pastry, chocolate, brandy snap, recipe

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I spent today making mini chocolate brownies to give out to our customers over Christmas. To make things a little more interesting, I enrobed them in chocolate.

If you wish to try them, follow the recipe here, substituting Grand Marnier for Kahlua. Mind you, they would be very good with Kahlua as well!

I tried baking them different ways – spooning out small amounts on a baking sheet, and also simply baking them as normal in a baking pan and then cutting them into very small squares. I think the latter method is definitely easier!

To enrobe them, melt some chocolate to 31C or so, and use a fork to dip in the cooled, cut brownie pieces. Leave them on a non-stick sheet to cool. If you know how to temper the chocolate, so much the better (they will last longer and not discolour).

Use good quality chocolate, and I would suggest adding a little bit of vegetable oil (I think grapeseed is best and used about 5% of the chocolate volume) to thin the chocolate. This helps you avoid making the chocolate shell too thick.

If you think there is no such thing as too much chocolate or too thick coatings, ignore the above.

For good measure, I drizzled the cooled, enrobed chocolate brownies with some melted white chocolate.

We’ll soon find out if our customers think they are a tasty as I do!

Technorati tags: brownie, pastry, chocolate, Grand Marnier, recipe

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 We’ve received our commercial waffle maker, and today we launched waffles in our Killarney shop. Customers seem well pleased!

I promised a recipe, so here it is – one from my mother – with the substitution of buttermilk for regular milk, which I find makes them even tastier. We serve them with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, but there are countless ways to enjoy waffles!

If you’re looking for a waffle maker in Ireland, Brown Thomas has a good Cuisinart one for 79 euros. Lidl had a special on waffle makers last week (20 euro, but the waffles come out pretty thin) and might have a few still kicking around. 

Sophia’s Buttermilk Waffles

Ingredients:

• 225 g flour
• 1.5 teasp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 70 g butter, cut into small pieces
• 350 ml buttermilk
• 1/2 teasp salt
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 teasp cinnamon
• 1/2 teasp vanilla

What to Do:

1. Sift the dry ingredients, except for the sugar, together. 
2. Separate the eggs.
3. Add the sugar to the egg yolks and beat together. 
4. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.
5. In a small saucepan, over low heat, warm the butter and buttermilk, stirring all the time, until the butter melted. Do not overheat!
6. Pour the buttermilk and butter into the dry ingredients, stirring until somewhat smooth. 
7. Add the egg yolks and vanilla, and stir until incorporated. 
8. Gently fold in egg whites
9. Cook according to the instructions of your waffle maker.

Technorati tags: waffle, buttermilk, recipe, ice cream, dessert

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