New Home For Ice Cream Ireland

Ice Cream Ireland has moved house! Please don't dally here but go to: (The New) Ice Cream Ireland for all of the lastest sweet musings. I hope that you will find the new site easier to navigate. I'm having fun with it, anyway! Please update your links if you have linked to me. Thanks, thanks, thanks! New Posts on Ice Cream Ireland:

Rum Raisin Ice Cream (Risíní) Recipe Food Treats in Paris - My Best of… I Love Paris in the… Skelligs Chocolate Co. D-Day in Dingle/An Daingean/Daingean Uí Chuis New Valrhona Chocolate Bars Fudge in Black and White Meringues Let Them Eat (Ice Cream) Cake Pear and Ginger Zabaglione Return of The Scone Pink Champagne Sorbet Blackberry and Apple Ice Cream Blackberry Coulis Playing with Nougat Poire (Pear) Belle Hélène Peach Melba Too Much Chocolate? Frozen Strawberry Banana Daiquiri A Few New Flavours Irish Cream Liqueur Ice Cream Ice Cream and Alcohol Caffe Latte Freddo Chilled Strawberry Soup Ice Cream Truffles Taste of Dublin Harleys in Killarney Baileys Brownies Tall Ship in Dingle Irish Chocolate - Cocoa Bean How to Make a Sundae Andalucia, Part 2 Andalucia Champagne Sorbet Single Estate Chocolate Ice Cream Bank Holiday and Ice Cream The Ice Cream Man Goes Milking Stuck on Sugar Eating Ethnic in Killarney Mint and Mojitos Chocolate Tart and Kerry Cows Baking with Payard, Part Deux Coffee and Milk Speed Dating for Business Out and About in Dublin Raspberry Lime Sorbet How to Make a Banana Split Things to Do in Dingle - Doonshean Special Diets Payard's Lemon Tart Plans for Killarney Chai Latte and Brown Bread Ice Cream Photos and Feile na Bealtaine New Toy - Photographing Food Great Taste Awards Things to Do in Dingle - Diseart Guinness Ice Cream The End of Lent Hot chocolate revisited Chocolate desserts Crepes and Ice Cream How to make a milkshake Buying and storing ice cream Previous Posts: Black and Tans Chocolate Brownies Milltown Market Supermarkets and the Small Irish Food Producer Crema and Coffee at Home Kerry Cow and Agritourism Honey Chai Ice Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies Cafetière vs. Caffè Americano Killarney, Nephews and Playgrounds St. Patrick’s Day in Dingle Belgian Chocolate Return to Chocolate and Sugar Sauce, Ice Cream and Decoration Ode to Sugar and Caramel Sauce Coffee Rant Number Two Information Overload and the Kerry Cow Chocolate and Lent Hot Chocolate for a Cold Day Snow in Dingle & 5 Ways to Improve Coffee Honey Lavender Ice Cream Craquantes and Other Bits and Pieces Chocolate and Chocolate Sauce Raspberries: Using fruit in ice cream Beghrir - Moroccan Pancakes Marrakesh Grilled Fish and Fabbri Amalou Agadir

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Rasberry Lime Sorbet

As we face into summer, there is nothing quite like the fresh taste of a sorbet to cool the head and enliven the palate. Raspberry and lime is one of my favourites and it's actually quite simple to prepare...

It's great either as a dessert or a sorbet course. If it's for a sorbet course, you might want to add another lime to make it more tart. The chocolate sauce recipe I gave here would be a great addition if it's a dessert.

Murphys Rasberry Lime Sorbet

1 Cup (237 ml) Sugar

1 Cup (237 ml) Water

225 gm (8 oz) Fresh, Ripe Raspberrys

4 limes

Yield: 6 Servings

What to do:

1. You will need the zest as well as the juice from the limes, so bring out your grater and work those peels (it's much easier before you cut the limes!). If you have a zester, this step will be very easy...

2. Put the sugar and lime zest in a heat-proof or pan.

3. Boil water in a tea boiler and measure out one cup.

4. Pour it over the sugar and zest, stir until the sugar has dissolved, and let it sit for about half an hour.

5. Strain out the lime zest and discard, and put the sugar syrup in a pan.

6. Add the raspberries and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat.

7. Stir it vigorously to break up the raspberries, then place into the refrigerator until cool.

8. When it's fully cool, add the juice of the limes. If you don't have a juicer, put a sieve over the bowl to catch the pips, and squeeze away.

9. Freeze using a domestic ice cream maker, or cover and place in the freezer.

10. If you use the latter method, wait until the sorbet is about halfway frozen, mix it vigorously, then return to the freezer.

Notes:

1. It's hard to make sorbet without an ice cream machine. You will need to interrupt the freezing process and stir, or you will be left with a block of red ice! The more times you do this, the better the consistency will be.

2. For more information, I wrote about working with fruit in ice cream here.

3. This sorbet is suitable for coeliacs, the lactose-intolerant, and is virtually fat-free. For more on special diets, click here.

Technorati tags: raspberry, lime, sorbet, ice cream, recipe

New Home, Please Update Your Links!

Ice Cream Ireland has moved house!

Please don't dally here but go to:

(The New) Ice Cream Ireland

for all of the lastest sweet musings.

I hope that you will find the new site easier to navigate. I'm having fun with it, anyway!

Please update your links if you have linked to me.

Thanks, thanks, thanks!

New Posts on Ice Cream Ireland:

Baking with Payard, Part Deux
Coffee and Milk
Speed Dating for Business
Out and About in Dublin
Raspberry Lime Sorbet
How to Make a Banana Split
Things to Do in Dingle - Doonshean
Special Diets
Payard's Lemon Tart
Plans for Killarney
Chai Latte and Brown Bread Ice Cream
Photos and Feile na Bealtaine
New Toy - Photographing Food
Great Taste Awards
Things to Do in Dingle - Diseart
Guinness Ice Cream
The End of Lent
Hot chocolate revisited
Chocolate desserts
Crepes and Ice Cream
How to make a milkshake
Buying and storing ice cream

Previous Posts:

Black and Tans
Chocolate Brownies
Milltown Market
Supermarkets and the Small Irish Food Producer
Crema and Coffee at Home
Kerry Cow and Agritourism
Honey Chai Ice Cream
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cafetière vs. Caffè Americano
Killarney, Nephews and Playgrounds
St. Patrick’s Day in Dingle
Belgian Chocolate
Return to Chocolate and Sugar
Sauce, Ice Cream and Decoration
Ode to Sugar and Caramel Sauce
Coffee Rant Number Two
Information Overload and the Kerry Cow
Chocolate and Lent
Hot Chocolate for a Cold Day
Snow in Dingle & 5 Ways to Improve Coffee
Honey Lavender Ice Cream
Craquantes and Other Bits and Pieces
Chocolate and Chocolate Sauce
Raspberries: Using fruit in ice cream
Beghrir - Moroccan Pancakes
Marrakesh
Grilled Fish and Fabbri
Amalou
Agadir

Guinness Ice Cream

Easter has been crazy busy in the shops, much more so than expected, and I had to make an emergency run of ice cream today. We ran out of several flavours, so I was up bright and early getting the mix ready and then freezing.

Besides the main flavours, I decided to do a Guinness ice cream, to have another Irish flavour in the cabinet. The recipe is below. Of course, being me, I couldn't resist throwing in some chocolate chips. You don't have to!

Murphys Guinness Ice Cream

1 Cup (237ml) Sugar

5 Egg Yolks

1 1/8 Cups (266ml) Cream

1 1/8 Cups(266ml) Milk

500 ml Guinness

A handful of dark chocolate chips.

Yield: 6 Servings

Instructions:

1. Measure out 100ml of Guinness and set aside.

2. Boil the remaining 400ml Guinness until it reduces to 100ml in volume. Cool.

3. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.

4. Bring the milk to a simmer.

5. Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.

6. Pour the mixture back into pan and place over low heat. Stir until the custard thickens slightly (around 70C). Use a thermometer, as at 75C the eggs will scramble!

7. Allow the custard to cool.

8. Stir in both the reduced and non-reduced Guinness.

9. Whip the cream.

10. Gently fold in the custard.

11. Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer.

Notes:

1. I haven't made this recipe for home use, so I would love any feedback if you try it!

2. The photo of 3 litres of Guinness is what I used. Don't pay any attention to the volume!

3. I combine reduced and non-reduced Guinness because using just reduced loses a bit of freshness in terms of flavour.

4. You don't have to use the chocolate chips of course, but I do think Guinness and chocolate go well together. You could also use this as a companion to a chocolate cake.

Technorati tags: chocolate chip, guinness, Easter, ice cream, recipe, Irish

I'm Still Getting a lot of Traffic Here but...

Ice Cream Ireland has moved house!

Please don't dally here but go to:

(The New) Ice Cream Ireland

for all of the lastest sweet musings.

I hope that you will find the new site easier to navigate. I'm having fun with it, anyway!

Please update your links if you have linked to me.

Thanks, thanks, thanks!

New Posts on Ice Cream Ireland:

Guinness Ice Cream
The End of Lent
Hot chocolate revisited
Chocolate desserts
Crepes and Ice Cream
How to make a milkshake
Buying and storing ice cream

Previous Posts:

Black and Tans
Chocolate Brownies
Milltown Market
Supermarkets and the Small Irish Food Producer
Crema and Coffee at Home
Kerry Cow and Agritourism
Honey Chai Ice Cream
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cafetière vs. Caffè Americano
Killarney, Nephews and Playgrounds
St. Patrick’s Day in Dingle
Belgian Chocolate
Return to Chocolate and Sugar
Sauce, Ice Cream and Decoration
Ode to Sugar and Caramel Sauce
Coffee Rant Number Two
Information Overload and the Kerry Cow
Chocolate and Lent
Hot Chocolate for a Cold Day
Snow in Dingle & 5 Ways to Improve Coffee
Honey Lavender Ice Cream
Craquantes and Other Bits and Pieces
Chocolate and Chocolate Sauce
Raspberries: Using fruit in ice cream
Beghrir - Moroccan Pancakes
Marrakesh
Grilled Fish and Fabbri
Amalou
Agadir

Black and Tans

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS JUST A MIRROR SITE AT THIS STAGE. MY CURRENT BLOG IS HERE! IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST, PLEASE DO SO HERE. THANKS!

I just stumbled upon the following website that brought my attention to Ben & Jerry's new flavour in the States: Black and Tan.

Even though I might be considered a competitor in the Irish market, Ben & Jerry's is actually close to my heart because the two founders were two of many reasons I went into this business. They made ice cream more fun. They seemed to have fun at what they were doing. They had a social conscience.

I remember their ice cream as much better than it is now, before they became part of Unilever. I would eat a tub of Cherry Garcia at one sitting, marvelling at the huge chunks of chocolate and amount of cherries. I don't remember any water in the ingredients back then.

A Black and Tan flavour? This is weird on so many levels. First of all, for some of their Irish-American customers, surely "Black and Tan" wont immediately bring to mind the drink but rather unsavoury historical references. Are they not aware of this?

Secondly, their website states this flavour is for "beer enthusiasts" but there is no beer (or stout) listed in the ingredients, just "natural flavours."

It makes me kind of sad. Have they come so far from what they were?

Technorati tags: black and tan, Ben and Jerry, beer, ice cream, stout

Chocolate Brownies

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS JUST A MIRROR SITE AT THIS STAGE. MY CURRENT BLOG IS HERE! IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST, PLEASE DO SO HERE. THANKS!

I am giving away the fact that I grew up in the US by my love of brownies. The brownies here in Ireland tend to be way too fluffy instead of being dense and decadent, and sadly people often use poor quality chocolate.

The fluffiness is no doubt due to the flour. It astonishes me that it is next to impossible to get flour without rising agents in Irish supermarkets. Even most "plain flour" is anything but when you peruse the ingredients. In my mind, plain flour would suggest one ingredient - flour, but that is not the case (look!). Of course commercially there is a great range of flour options but in supermarkets we have just found two flours that are simply flour - Family Favourite Plain flour from Lidl and Supervalu's Valusaver Plain Flour. So check your flour ingredients list (how strange it is to say that!) and make sure it says nothing more than flour if you want to avoid the brownies rising more than they will naturally with the eggs.

The same goes for the chocolate chip cookie recipe I gave here earlier.

Murphys Chocolate Brownies

Servings : 6 Preparation Time : 00:45:00 (including baking)

Categories : Pastries

Amount / Measure / Ingredient

250 grams Chocolate (55% cocoa content)

165 grams butter -- at room temperature

3/4 tablespoons vanilla

300 grams sugar

135 grams flour

3 each egg

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C.

2. Butter and flour an 10 inch square baking pan. Set it aside.

3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Mix until smooth.

4. Beat the sugar and eggs together.

5. Add the vanilla.

6. Slowly pour in the chocolate and butter, mixing all the time.

7. Sift the flour, then add, mixing thoroughly.

8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake just until cooked, 25 - 30 minutes (a knife should come out clean).

9. Allow the brownies to cool slightly. Then cut them into squares and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

10. Serve with ice cream and chocolate sauce for a truly decadent dessert!

Technorati tags: brownie, pastry, chocolate, ice cream, recipe

Milltown Market and Petrol Heads

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS JUST A MIRROR SITE AT THIS STAGE. MY CURRENT BLOG IS HERE! IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST, PLEASE DO SO HERE. THANKS!

For anyone travelling between Killarney and Dingle, I highly recommend a stop in Milltown to visit the market there. Set in one of the prettiest buildings of any Irish market, it is certainly worth a browse, especially on a Saturday, when there are rows of organic farmers, bakers, etc. selling their wares. With a good range of natural products, organic and biodynamic wines, food, and gardening and farming supplies, it makes a very pleasant break to the drive. At the very least you will come away with some snacks, and if you have a green thumb and room in your car, you might come away with all sorts of treats for your garden.

You will find it on the right as you come into Milltown, down from the school and opposite the petrol station.

The opening hours are Tues-Fri 2-5 and Saturday 10-2.

Meanwhile, unless you're car mad, avoid Dingle each year during the rally, which is this weekend. Dingle town is at a standstill today and the roar of cars echo around the peninsula.

At times like these I get that parallel universe feeling as the whole town is taken over by an entirely different crowd of people than the usual visitors. Besides the racers there are spectators, hawkers of all sorts of racing merchandise, chipper vans just for the event, etc.

The roads are closed to the West, and even Dingle town is virtually impassable as boy racers rev their engines and creep along the streets looking to impress. Confused tourists wander around shell-shocked, a free day on their hands after being told they can't visit sites or tour around the place.

At least this event is not marred by the violence that seems to accompany the Killarney rally, and I guess it is a wonderful thrill for people who life for their cars...

Technorati tags: Dingle, Killarney, rally, Milltown, market, tourism

Supermarkets and the Small Irish Producer

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS JUST A MIRROR SITE AT THIS STAGE. MY CURRENT BLOG IS HERE!

One of the biggest challenges for the small Irish food producer is to negotiate and deal with supermaket chains. Inevitably they have all the power, and since you are small, you are very much at the mercy of their whims. Whether you remain on their shelf or not is of little interest to them, no matter how much they like to tell eveyone how important the Irish producer is to them. "Irish" is a good selling point for getting customers in the shop and feeling good about it, but inevitably Irish specialty lines will not perform as well as the huge multinationals. I don't know how many zeros you would have to add on to our marketing budget to bring it up to the level of Haagen Dazs/Diageo (not to mention Ben&Jerrys/HB/Unilever), but it would be many indeed. It will be a long time before we shift as many tubs out of a shop as they do!

Bord Bia can be helpful to some degree at least in terms of information, but anyone going down the supermarket route must be wary. In our own case, we decided to avoid the big chains because we've heard the stories of specialty producers who think they've hit the lotto when they're listed, spent a fortune ramping up production for the huge orders, and then a year later go bust when they are unceremoniously dropped.

We decided to go into Superquinn as a supermarket trial, and have been in their shops for about a year. Yesterday, they threatened to de-list us. I don't know if it's a ploy to try to hammer us down on price, or if it's that the new frozen food buyer wants to get rid of all lines except the very best sellers, which is standard practise when they want to optimise sales per square metre. For us, being dropped would not be the end of the world, as we are only in a few of their shops and it's a small percentage of our overall sales. However, it's very frustrating in so far as many of our best customers are in areas served by Superquinn, and we know that they are delighted to be able to buy our ice cream without having to travel.

The point of all of this is not to complain about things being unfair. We drop products all the time in our own shops for a whole variety of reasons. It's that I hope that eventually this site will be a better way to keep in touch with customers than mail and our website. That it also can be a way to mobilise customers in circumstances like these. Right now we have hundreds of customers who buy our ice cream in Superquinn every week, and they have no idea that it's quite likely that buying the ice cream will soon become a lot harder (at least we have many other accounts in the Dublin area, but it's too much to expect customers to regularly go out of their way). If we could generate 100 or more emails to Superquinn from Superquinn customers, they would have to pay attention (at least I hope they would). I know that if even three customers begged us to keep a product we had dropped from our own shop we would stock just for them.

I would love any feedback or suggestions.

A great (though depressing) reference on how supermarkets work is Joanna Blythman's book Shopped. Also, Conor O'Neill has written a great article about small producers and blogging.

Technorati tags: ice cream, supermarkets, food, books, artisian, Irish

Coffee at Home and Crema

Copernicus over at Midnight Court wrote in a comment here about having trouble getting good crema on his espresso using a little stainless steel espresso pot at home. Given that he said he spent time working in Italy, I assume he means one like that shown above. Practically everyone who has had a meal in someone's house in Italy would have seen these. My grandmother, who lived on the Lago Maggiore used hers religiously every day.

I can only get very inconsistent crema myself making coffee made by this method. However, I think that the importance of crema is overstated in terms of home use. In fact, it's only a guide (though a good one) even in a cafe. There is a excellent article on Virtual Coffee in which the author says that while he believes crema is important, the mere presence of crema does not mean that the espresso is a good one, and that an espresso with great crema can be burnt and bitter.

A friend in Dingle is so fixated on crema that he has ordered a La Pavoni pump machine like the one above after I have him a loan of mine. It's a beautiful machine, and it's probably the best possible option for making espressos at home, but frankly it's a bit fussy for my taste.

When I stagger downstairs and into the kitchen in the morning, I want a coffee that tastes good, and I don't need it to look perfect. In a restaurant or cafe, it's a different story, and I expect both. That's the standard for our own shops. But if my morning coffee doesn't have any crema, I'm not going to worry as long as it tastes as I expect it should.

I think my grandmother would have stared blankly at any mention of "crema" regarding her coffee pot, as would probably most Italians making coffee by this method. They would probably say, "If you want crema, go to an espresso bar. If you want a good coffee, stop babbling nonsense, and I will serve it to you."

So if you're happy with your coffee, be happy - crema or no crema! If not, switch beans. If you're still not happy, try making coffee by another method.

If you want to try the cafetière method, it's cheap and easy, but the coffee will be less like espresso than the above method. I bought the one below in Roches, and I even get a decent crema! Use good coffee and let the water cool slightly after boiling. If you want a French-style café au lait, use a dark roast ground medium-fine, make the coffee strong, warm the milk (don't scald it) and combine about half milk and half coffee. Bring on the croissants!

Technorati tags: cafe, cafetiere, Italian, coffee, crema, Irish

Apologies

I haven't had the time to post because I've decided to move house (host). The lack of categories in Blogger has been making me crazy, and this is just early days for me...

With suggestions from the very helpful Conor O'Neill, I have been brave and got a proper host and domain.

I'm much better at ice cream than html, but here is what will be soon the new home of

Ice Cream Ireland

I guess I'll keep both of them going for the moment.

Let me know what you think!

Kerry Cow and Agritourism

I mentioned the Kerry cow in an earlier post, and this afternoon I braved the lashing rain to visit the Dingle farmer with whom we've been working toward using the milk in our ice cream. One of his cows had twins last week, and that means the some Kerry cow milk will be coming our way again soon!

I apologise about the quality of the photos, as the rain made it hard to get a clear shot, but hopefully you can see that the Kerry cow is different from the Friesian (Holstein) cows that you usually see about the place. It is an indigenous breed that is smaller, hardier, and generally much more alert and healthy looking.

I can't wait to try making ice cream again with it!

What really excites me is that I think projects like this (i.e. farmers working with artesian food producers) can be one way that small Irish farmers can survive in the future of deminished or abolished subsidies.

Another way would be agritourism. It certainly seems that more Irish farmers should be looking at it, especially in Dingle or other places that are lucky enough to have a good flow of tourists.

They are mad for it in Italy, where people pay a fortune to pick olives, and in the US even movies have been made about city boys paying to round-up cattle at a dude ranch. Farmers gain income by offering lodgings and meals and can not only avoid having to hire help at harvesting time but get people who pay handsomely for the privilege. What could be bad about that?

Perhaps the problem here is that so many Irish people couldn't wait to leave the farm themselves and move to the city to try to make a better living (my own family included). Perhaps the farmers who are left are so used to this state of affairs that they can't see why anyone would want to come back, even as a tourist. But many city people see a week on a farm as a way of bringing balance back into their lives, and I think this trend will grow.

In fairness, agritourism does exist in this country in various forms, and even in Dingle with its pet farms and corn maze. There are other Irish farms at it including Sweetbank in Wicklow with its sublime fruits and farm shop/cafe, which an excellent example of how it can work...

Technorati tags: agritourism, ice cream, farm, cow, Kerry, Dingle

Honey Chai Ice Cream

One of the best and most rewarding trips I've ever taken was to India. From the tea plantations in Darjeeling to the beaches of Goa to the Ganges and colours of Rajisthan, it's an amazing country.

The eating was fantastic (as long as you do as they do and avoid meat) and the drink of choice, outside of Goa with it's exotic fruit drinks, was chai. Served up in cans by chai wallahs (vendors) it was sweet (they use lots of condensed milk) and fragrant.

Feeling nostalgic for the warmth of India in this seemingly endless winter, I made a chai ice cream today, and decided to add a bit of honey for additional sweetness. I also tossed in some (but not too many) dark chocolate chips because I wanted some kick!

To the right is what the finished product looked like...

If you want to try it, the recipe is below. You'll notice it's almost identical to the recipe for Honey Lavender ice cream from a previous post.

Murphys Honey-Chai Ice Cream

1 Cup (237ml) Sugar
5 Egg Yolks
1 1/8 Cups (266ml) Cream
1 1/8 Cups(266ml) Milk
6 Chai teabags
2 Cups (475ml) Water
1 tablespoons liquid honey
A handful of dark chocolate chips.

Yield: 6 Servings

1. Boil the chai in the water until the water has reduced to 1/10th of the volume.
2. Remove from the heat and strain. Stir in the honey.
3. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.
4. Bring the milk to a simmer.
5. Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.
6. Pour the mixture back into pan and place over low heat. Stir until the custard thickens slightly (around 70C). Use a thermometer, as at 75C the eggs will scramble!
7. Allow the custard to cool.
8. Mix in the lavender/honey and chocolate chips.
9. Whip the cream.
10. Gently fold in the custard.
11. Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer.

Notes: 1. I suggest you use a simple, liquid honey. Darker or more complex honeys will have a very strong flavour, so in that case use less!
2. If you can't find chai in your supermarket, you'll find it in the tea section of your health food shop. I used organic Clipper chai (see top photo).

Technorati tags: chocolate chip, chai, honey, ice cream, recipe

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Since we were a little shy of cake in the Dingle shop, I went baking. Nothing fancy, just some yummy chocolate chip cookies.

I like my cookies dense not fluffy, and these make a perfect combination with vanilla ice cream, if you want to try them.

Here's the recipe:

Murphys Chocolate Chip Cookies

135g plain flour (no rising agents)
115g butter
75g sugar
90g light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
150g 50% good quality chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat oven to 190C.
2. Combine sugar, and brown sugar and melted butter and beat until light.
3. Beat in egg.
4. Slowly add flour, mixing all the time.
5. Add vanilla.
6. Stir in chocolate morsels.
7. Spoon onto a lightly buttered baking tray.
8. Bake 5 min.
9. Remove tray, rap on counter.
10. Bake another 4 minutes.
11. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Yield: 7 large cookies

As always, good chocolate and vanilla will make all the difference in how these taste.

The photo with the mixer is a triple recipe, so don't worry if your mixer doesn't look that full!

Let me know how it works for you!

Technorati tags: chocolate chip, cookie, chocolate, ice cream, recipe
File as: Recipe1

Cafetière vs. Caffè Americano

With apologies to Markham and others who have given up coffee for Lent, I am going to return briefly to the subject, because I think we've made a break-through. It's not anything earth-shattering, but still I think worth talking about.

For the last years we've been struggling with making a simple cup of coffee. It might seem a humble option in a board full of caramel lattes, and affogato al caffès, but still I feel it's like vanilla ice cream - a bench mark. If I go to an ice cream shop, I often taste their vanilla because often the simplest flavours are both the hardest to do and the easiest to judge.

In our shops, we've been serving Caffè Americanos when people ask for "coffee." The Americano is perfect for the many people who like it, but it's not perfect for all coffee drinkers. Although many people think it's a strong coffee because it comes from an espresso machine, the name means quite the opposite. Italians called it "Americano" years ago because it tasted like American coffee to them, the kind you still find in US diners. In other words, it was very weak to their palates.

After a lot of tasting, we've decided on the French-style plunger, or "Cafetière," for our regular coffee. We've chosen an organic, fair-trade bean from Maher's and grind it quite fine. The result is a deep, rich flavour for those who like their coffee very strong. For everyone else, there's still of course the Americano.

Technorati tags: caffe, cafetiere, americano, coffee, latte, Irish
File as: ccof

Killarney, Nephews and Playgrounds

Today my brother and I left Dingle to spend a Sunday working in the Killarney shop. It was a pleasant affair, with a lot of regulars and many new customers in, mostly from Cork. I worked the espresso machine, my brother scooped, and Misha did most everything else.

Toward the end of the day my nephew showed up, and he and I headed off to the new playground in the National Park. It's opposite the cathedral, and I highly suggest it to anyone with kids. It's really a big step up in terms of sophistication from most of the playgrounds around with multiple climbing contraptions, swings, slides, but all on a bigger scale than usual.

The children (and parents) all seemed delighted, and I had to practically rip my nephew away at the end of an enjoyable hour.

There definitely are some treasures in the park besides the landscape and wildlife!

Tomorrow it's back to making ice cream...

Technorati tags: Killarney, Dingle, national park, playground, Ireland

St. Patrick's Day in Dingle

A few photos from the parade in Dingle, which is a pleasant and very local affair. There was a great turnout in spite of the cold day, and of course the Dingle/An Daingean controversy played its part...

I'm too busy in the shop serving coffee and ice cream to write more!

Technorati tags: coffee, Dingle, St. Patrick, parade, saint

Belgian Chocolate

One of the best things about being in this business (besides ice cream) is that many days you have treats such as coffee and chocolate arriving in the door, making for happy eating and drinking.

Today, one of our great customers, the mysterious Lady K from the greater Dublin area, dropped in a gift of some Pierre Marcolini chocolate she had picked up from their store in Belgium. It's truly delicious. What a treat! For those interested, they also have a boutique in Kensington and New York.

Then a salesman arrived in from Nairobi coffee, and it was double espressos all around. I don't think we'll switch from our current supplier, but it certainly gave the afternoon a good buzz!

Technorati tags: coffee, chocolate, ice cream, Belgian, London

Return to Chocolate and Sugar

Today in the factory, JP and Neill were busy making ice cream in preparation for the St. Patricks day crowds-to-be in the shops. Since they needed some help, and I'm happy for any excuse to procrastinate from paperwork and administration, I went making hot chocolate.

Going through the process yet again, I thought I'd add that if you want to make our hot chocolate, (or the chocolate sauce recipe), make sure you follow the instructions about heating the milk and adding it to the melted chocolate. It really is the only way to get a good emulsion, and your sauce or hot chocolate will be smooth, glossy and professional-looking.

For anyone interested, I learned almost everything I know about chocolate by taking the chocolate course offered by Valrhona (courtesy of our distributor Odaios), and there are many worse ways to spend a few days!

Finally, with the news of the closing of the Mallow sugar plant, it occurs to me that it would be a great business opportunity for someone to buy the plant and make organic sugar. Keep the jobs, keep the farmers happy, and go some way to redressing the huge organic trade deficit in this country. It would be one less thing we would have to import!

Technorati tags: sugar, sauce, recipe, chocolate, ice cream, Ireland