I’m off to Japan in a couple of weeks, joining a Bord Bia food tour (life could be worse!)
In researching ice cream there, I came across a Japanese outfit, q-pot, who make jewelry in the shape of ice cream and other sweets, as well as sweet-themed accessories, including Chocolate ipod cases!!! (photo right).
I think I’ll have to stop in!
By the way, if anyone has any tips for ice cream in Japan, ice cream of the edible kind, I’d be most eager to hear them!
In fact, any tips would be welcome…
With Christmas coming up, I just wanted to remind everyone that it is perfectly possible to mould ice cream to make your ice cream dessert more decorative.
There are a variety of baking moulds that work well. You can use a springform cake tin if you want to make an ice cream cake (a cloth dipped in hot water will help the form to release once it’s set).
There are also more and more rubber moulds available from kitchen or baking suppliers, suitable for baking and perfect for ice cream, since you can peel them off the ice cream quite easily once it’s set. You can also use chocolate moulds, ideally those made with a pliable material.
All you need to do is remove your ice cream from your ice cream machine a little softer than normal and use a spatula to spread it in the mould. Transfer to the freezer until it is set, then remove the mould and decorate…
Christophe, our ice cream maker, was playing around with meringues the other day, and he came up with these little ghosts for Halloween. I think they are very cute. They could be used for decoration, if you don’t eat them straight away.
I’ve been giving them out now and then over the weekend to select customers in our shops, and they have gotten a great reception.
If you want to make them, use the meringue recipe here. Christophe used a piping bag with a large, plain tip to form the ghosts. You could also use two spoons. He then used some cocoa to darken the meringue for the decoration, piping it with the smallest tip.
Technorati tags: meringue, recipe, ice cream, dessert, baking
We’ve come up with our list of Mexican Fiesta ice cream flavours for the Food Festival in October. (Drum roll please!) They are:I’ll be posting some of the recipes soon!
Technorati tags: fiesta, ice cream, food festival, Dingle
Food producers of the future take note!
If you have talent in the kitchen, a food product up your sleeve and a wish to be on TV, RTE has announced a six part series, Recipe for Success, that will have 15 home cooks battle it out to have their own gastronomic creations stocked on the shelves of one of Ireland’s leading supermarkets.
They are looking for contestants, and certainly you couldn’t dream of getting more publicity for your product launch.
You can download an application here.
Then, if it all goes well, you can enter next year’s food awards!
Technorati Tags: RTE, Recipe for Success, TV, show
Here’s a bit of news: We’re going to be in the Dome with the Roses in Tralee (for the fashion show and selection nights), selling ice cream – with proceeds going to support the event. In fact, we’re the only company who has been invited in!
We’ll see if the Roses like the pink champagne sorbet, which should keep spirits high! If I can smuggle in the camera, I’ll try to get some good glamourous ice cream shots!
We’ve decided, for the National Irish Food Awards, to make the gold medals from Irish crystal. The photo is a prototype from Sean over at Dingle Crystal. I kind of wish I wasn’t involved, so I could try to win one. It would look quite well in one of the shops! By the way, as you probably noticed from the top link, the website for the awards is up, with an application for download for Irish producers with products in made in Ireland…
Julian over at Bubble Brothers wrote a while ago about wine ice cream selling in New York, licensed as regular wine.
Needless to say I was intrigued, and I found out that the company behind it is called Mercier Ice Cream in Boonsville, and their flavours such as Cherry Merlot or Chocolate Cabernet have 5% alcohol content.
I think this is a very cool concept, and anyone would know who sampled or made my champage sorbet, I am fond of alcoholic ice creams! It’s almost worth a trip to the States to try this frozen tipple…
