Ballymaloe Desserts: Iconic Recipes and Stories from Ireland

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Ballymaloe House, in County Cork, Ireland, is heralded as the birthplace of modern Irish cuisine. There, visitors are treated to acclaimed pastry chef JR Ryall's daily array of seasonally inspired treats, wheeled through the dining room on a vintage dessert trolley. In Ballymaloe Desserts, Ryall presents 130 recipes for his award-winning confections, tested and perfected for the home baker. By focusing on seasonality and what was around her, she set an example,” he writes. “She championed the best-quality produce, always looking for natural flavour. Her statement was feeding people food in which she felt thoroughly confident. Working with Mrs Allen was always exciting and often unpredictable. Her approach seemed eccentric yet it always made sense. She believed in her ideas, knew her own mind and, through her life, became an expert problem solver. Myrtle had a clear vision and she shared it with everyone around her. I feel very fortunate to have learnt from her.” Like many young chefs, Ryall has staged (an unpaid internship) in some of the world’s top restaurants, taking a two-month break each year to travel, while Anne Healy and the team of pastry chefs in the kitchen take over in his absence. Spending time in Bangkok, South America, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Mexico, it seems almost surprising that none of these influences have crept into the dishes on the dessert trolley. Instead, discovering dishes that have a true sense of place in other countries has reinforced the importance in his mind of preserving the integrity of the classic dishes he cooks in the restaurant. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the bubbling mixture directly onto the lined baking sheet. Allow the caramel and nuts to cool completely. If you’d like a gluten-free pastry option, you can use Gluten-Free all-purpose blend flour in this recipe.

The dessert trolley at Ballymaloe House. Photo by Cliodhna Prendergast The dessert trolley that helped define Ballymaloe DessertsThe trolley was a practical and elegant way to serve her guests, and it allowed Myrtle to easily change the desserts on offer as often as she wished,” JR explains in his new book. “Myrtle carefully planned the dessert menu each day so the various dishes would complement each other. If a guest was to try a little bit of each dessert on the trolley, all of the flavours and textures would need to work together.” Myrtle died in June 2018 at the age of 94, yet JR continues to load up Ballymaloe’s trolley in a manner that would make Myrtle proud. Creamed butter pastries are often used for sweeter pies, such as fruit pies, where the sweetness and tenderness complement the filling.

He was invited to return the following evening, and once again JR accepted, though he was relieved to find himself stationed not in the restaurant's main kitchen, where he had fallen the night before, but with the pastry chefs. large or extra-large eggs, separated (put the egg whites in a medium-size metal or glass mixing bowl)For a more intense flavour, the saffron and cardamom syrup can be reduced and cooled again before pouring it over the arranged pears. Eye-catching, elegant, and a bit magical, these inspiring yet accessible recipes range from the delightfully retro Ice Cream Bomb to the showstopping Irish Coffee Meringue Gateau to a Classic Strawberry Shortcake made modern with an edgy geometric presentation. Ballymaloe Creamed Butter Pastry is a sweet shortcrust pastry. It is irresistibly tender and delicate, and every pastry chef and home chef needs a go-to shortcrust recipe like this for tarts and pies. Paying attention to small details and taking care when presenting each dish makes cooking and eating these desserts a very special experience,” he writes. And for that presentation to work best, JR would be mad to veer off his trolley.