Ice Cream Ireland

 I have written about Francois Payard’s book Simply Sensational Desserts a couple of times here. It really is my favourite pastry book.

I had a severe chocolate craving a couple of nights ago and tackled his chocolate souffle, which is made in individual ramekins. This is a superb dessert. 

He suggests pistachio ice cream as an accompaniment, and I found the pairing spot-on. (In case you are wondering why our pistachio is not green - well, we don’t use food colouring…)

The photos don’t really do it justice, since the souffles should be served  right out of the oven, and had fallen quite a bit by the time I got to taking a photo (the next morning).

Again, if you love baking, the book is certainly worth the price.  

Technorati tags: cookbook, chocolate, souffle, Payard, dessert

We’ve been playing around with making ice cream Easter eggs. I had bought an egg mould some time ago, and we poured the ice cream into it. Then we wrapped it in chocolate (we tried both dipping and pouring, and both come out well) and added some caramalised hazelnut nibs. I don’t know if the customers will get any. We’re busy eating away!

Technorati tags: ice cream, egg, chocolate, Easter

 Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s a raspberry sorbet and strawberry ice cream sundae we’re making for Valentine’s day…

We also made champagne sorbet, and even some pink champagne sorbet for our shops to make the day special for our customers.

By the way, a handy little trick if you’re making a romantic dessert this evening is as follows:

Whip some cream and once it is firm mix in some crushed or pureed raspberries or strawberries until they are completely incorporated.

It gives you a dramatically pink cream for decoration. And even better, it tastes good too!

Technorati tags: Valentine, sorbet, champagne, pink, cream, ice cream  

 There are mixed feelings in Ireland about the recent influx of immigration from foreign parts. I have to say I don’t share those mixed feelings. For me, it’s a good thing. After all, historically we had more of a problem with people leaving than in coming, and it’s great to see that we have the jobs not only to keep our own here, but to attract others as well. There is a need for labour, especially in the service industry. Although we always try to hire Irish when we can, we have had some excellent non-Irish team members from the EU and further afield and have been grateful for their service.

What really makes me excited, though, is the accompanying influx of cultural and culinary influences. Want some Polish pickles, sausages, or herring? There has been an explosion of Polish shops, and even Dingle has one now.

Craving galangal, fresh lemon grass, exotic noodles, extra hot chilli peppers, or African spices? There is probably an Asian market near you (Killarney has a great one).

It is such a joy to peruse offerings that, until recently, one could have only dreamed about. I suggest a visit for anyone who wants to broaden their culinary horizons. For me, always looking for ice cream ideas, it is an inspiration…

Technorati tags: Polski, sklep, Asian, market, immigration, Ireland

 We’ve decided this year to improve our tea selection in the shop, and yesterday I went to Munster Wholefoods and poked around their warehouse, looking for options. One of the things I came back with was organic Rooibosch tea (also called “Redbush” or “Rooibos”).

This non-caffeinated tea originated in South Africa with the Khoisen tribe, who used it as a natural remedy. It’s from the red bush shrub (Aspalathus linearis) and was brought into Europe by the Dutch.

According to the BBC, it can help with headaches, colic, asthma, insomnia, eczema, etc. In South Africa, hospitals routinely give children with skin conditions a bath in the stuff as well as giving it to them to drink.

However, I’m not so interested in the bathing or medicinal properties. I think it’s a delightful drink. It has half the tannin as normal tea, which makes it less bitter, and it can be drunk with milk and sugar, lemon and honey, or straight up. If you want a cup of tea before bedtime, you don’t want the usual herbal, and you want to sleep well, this is definitely one to consider…

Technorati tags: rooibosch, red bush, tea, organic

 I really thought that I liked chocolate in ALL its many forms, but I have been proven wrong.

These are chocolate noodles that my sister sent me from Germany. The idea is that you cook them up like basic pasta and then serve them hot with ice cream. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?

The problem is that they are much more like pasta than like chocolate - i.e. pasta with a vague hint of chocolate, and some how the whole thing really didn’t work.

I presented the dessert to my whole chocoholic family (except my sister, who wisely didn’t fly over for the meal), and not one of us finished off the noodles, although the ice cream disappeared quickly enough.

I guess that it’s one of those things that are good in concept… Still, it was worth a try, and you have to hand it to a sister who knows that just about all good gifts for me contain chocolate…

Technorati tags: chocolate, noodle, dessert, ice cream, Germany

 Ok, call me a little crazy here, but I’ve had it in my head to make an ice cream snowman for a while, using our vanilla ice cream and chocolate. Since there is a Festive Food Fair over at Morsels and Musings, I thought this might be a good entry, although it’s not exactly a recipe…

Still, it would make a nice (though quickly melting) centrepiece to a holiday dinner dessert course or even individual desserts if you want to make a full project of it. So here’s how I made my snowman:

1. I melted down about 100 grams of 70% chocolate and used a spoon to fashion the buttons, arms, mouth, and pipe. I used a flexible baking sheet, but you could also use baking paper. Wait until its completely cold before using a knife to separate it from the sheet. Handle the pieces as little as possible, or they will melt - body temperature is higher than the melting point of chocolate!

2. The hats I made by spreading the chocolate in a circle for the brim, then cutting a chocolate truffle in half and placing it on top. Finally, I coated the chocolate truffle with some of the melted chocolate.

3. I put a saucer in the freezer to make it good and cold (or the ice cream will melt as soon as it hits it!)

4. I scooped three scoops of vanilla ice cream onto the saucer to make the snowman. I pushed a plastic spoon into the body to give it a spine and help keep it together before I put on the final scoop (the head).  I then put the snowman back in the freezer to harden it before decoration.

5. I decorated it with the chocolate shapes I made, the bottom tip of an ice cream cone for the nose, a bit of red ribbon for the scarf, and put it back in the freezer. That’s it!

Technorati tags: chocolate, vanilla, ice cream, snowman, holiday

I have never baked cupcakes before, but coming across Chockylit’s cupcakeblog made me want to give them a try. We were a little shy on cakes from our baker today in the shop, so I decided to go baking, and above are the results of my efforts using the cupcakeblog’s recipe for chocolate mint cupcakes.

It is amazing what is out there in the world of blogging, and some of the recipes for cupcakes on the above blog are truly interesting, especially the ones using herbs and flowers. There’s even an ice cream cupcake. Definitely something to try soon…

Technorati tags: chocolate, cupcake, baking, blog, cooking

We have decided to bring some good quality cooking chocolate into our shops because it is so hard to find in Kerry. We’ve started with two types of Valrhona baking chocolate.

A big part of our philosophy in terms of making ice cream or anything else is that good ingredients will make a good product.

I know that is a bit of a cliche, but it is true. All the cooking technique in the world wont cover inferior ingredients.

Especially for home cooking and baking, it won’t cost you that much more to source high quality ingredients, and the difference in the final product will be immense.

So if you’re setting out to bake some brownies or make chocolates, chocolate sauce, hot chocolate, or anything else of a chocolate persuasion, please use good chocolate as a starting point!

Technorati tags: chocolate, valrhona, baking, ice cream, cooking

 Another dessert invented by Escoffier, also with a musical theme, is Pear Helene (Poire Belle Helene). The inspiration came from the 1864 operetta of the same name, by Offenbach.

A favourite dessert in our family, it’s simple and delicious. All it takes is some poached pears (you can use canned ones to make it dead easy, although I wouldn’t during the summer season), vanilla ice cream, and warmed chocolate sauce. That’s it.

It’s a treat I remember from my childhood (and I can thank my parents for lavishing such things on us as youngsters - resulting, perhaps, in my chronic sweet tooth).

I haven’t had it for ages, but leaving my parents house a few days ago, I noticed that their pear tree was full of pears, and that was enough for me to go poaching.

I used a sugar syrup (a ratio of about 1:10 - sugar to water), and only poached them enough to soften them slightly (about 5 minutes).

I don’t especially like over-cooked fruit, but raw pears are not as luxurious in this dessert. It’s a bit of a balance, though, for soggy pears are not very appealing either…

There’s little assembly required - a bit of ice cream, some warm chocolate sauce liberally dribbled on top, and the spoon is ready for work.

I have seen this dessert presented as whole poached pears resting on a lake of chocolate with the ice cream adjoining them, and that has quite a dramatic effect!

Technorati tags: pear, Helene, chocolate, sauce, vanilla, ice cream