Take the crumbs of a penny loaf grated and a pint of cream ten eggs half the whites, green it with the juice of spinage, and shred a little tansy grass in, then boil it to a hasty pudding, put in two spoonsfulls of orange flower water, sugar and nutmeg to your taste then fry it.
—from an 18th century Irish cookbook manuscript
Beyond all those cakes on the tea table, we do eat desserts in Ireland. Apples are a running theme, but we use them, like potatoes, in a lot of different ways—from the Potato-Apple Cake, a recipe that dates back several hundred years, to the soft fluffiness of the pudding called Apple Snow, to sharply sweet Irish Apple Tarts, not drowned with cinnamon but spiced only with cloves.
There’s also a lot of whipped cream, for topping meringues, providing a cushion of cream for a trifle, or for serving as the base of a fresh fruit fool flavored by whatever is in season. We nearly always eat unsweetened whipped cream in Ireland—and we eat a lot of it.
A favorite autumn dish, Potato-Apple Cake dates back at least to the 18th century. It is made by encasing sweetened apples in a rich potato pastry, and it’s a warm dessert for a typically cold, blustery night in Ireland in October or November. In fact, the dense, filling texture means that Potato-Apple Cake makes an excellent harvest supper on its own, served with mugs of mulled cider and glasses of milk.
Serves 4 to 6
For the pastry:
4 medium Idaho potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup all-purpose flour (more as needed)
For the filling:
6 large cooking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter
Pinch of nutmeg (optional)
Milk for brushing
sugar for garnish
1 Peel, quarter, and boil the potatoes until tender. Drain and mash the potatoes with the butter, sugar, salt, and ginger, then stir in flour until it makes a pliable dough. (You may need more or less flour depending on your potatoes.) Halve the dough and roll into two circles.
2 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place one half of the dough on a large, well-buttered baking sheet. Cover the dough with apple slices in concentric rings, leaving an inch of pastry border. Sprinkle the apples with flour and sugar and dot with butter. Sprinkle on a bit of nutmeg if desired, and brush the pastry border with a little milk.
3 Cover with the other pastry circle and press to seal. Brush the surface with milk and sprinkle generously with sugar. Cut several vents in the top and place the baking sheet in the oven.
4 Bake for 40 minutes, until the apples are tender and the pastry is golden brown. Serve warm.
The Irish would use Bramley cooking apples for this recipe, large misshapen lumps of apples that bake up beautifully. Use the tartest baking apple you can find, such as Jonagolds, Northern Spy, or Granny Smith. Sprinkle the apple slices with a bit of lemon juice before adding the flour and sugar, to make the flavor tarter.
If serving Potato-Apple Cake as a supper by itself, place each warm slice in a bowl and top with a splash of heavy cream, unsweetened. Eat with a spoon.
Before the days of global grocery shipping, apples were about the only fresh fruit the Irish could rely on year-round, so recipes for apple desserts have never been in short supply across the country. I think this one is especially good: It’s a fluffy little dessert that’s not too sweet, is fast to make, and one that really lets the flavor of an heirloom apple shine. I like the tender flesh of a slightly spicy Macoun for this recipe (but it’s good even with a sweet Golden Delicious). Traditionally, each diner crumbles a digestive biscuit or two over his or her portion just before eating, but any crumbled cookie—particularly gingersnaps—does the job admirably.
Makes 4 servings
4 cooking apples, peeled, cored, cut into chunks
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup sugar
2 egg whites
¾ cup whipping cream
Cookies for crumbs, such as Digestive Biscuits or gingersnaps
1 Cook the apples in a small saucepan over low heat with the lemon juice and sugar, stirring frequently, until completely cooked down. Purée by pressing through a sieve or simply mashing with a fork to remove any chunks. Cool.
2 Beat the egg whites until stiff and then fold them carefully into the apple purée. Avoid overbeating. Spoon into four glasses and chill.
3 When ready to serve, whip the cream softly and divide among the glasses. Pass whole cookies for each diner to crumble on top before eating.
Irish whipped cream is almost never sweetened (unless it’s flavored with brandy or whiskey). It can require a little readjustment for American taste buds, but you may come to vastly prefer plain whipped cream, which highlights rather than smothers a dessert. To best approximate Irish-style whipped cream, use organic heavy cream, which will generally have come from grass-fed cows and have more flavor. Whip it softly, by hand, not with a mixer, and dollop it generously onto whatever you’re eating.
Not a few Irish people also dollop a spoonful on top of their after-dinner coffee, allowing the cream to melt slowly into the hot coffee while they drink.
My dad’s apple tart was legendary. He had a dab-hand with pastry, whipping up crusts that were light, flaky, and golden, and yet somehow dense and hearty, the perfect foil for sharp-flavored baking apples. He seasoned his tarts only with cloves and sugar, nothing else, so the taste of apples, not cinnamon, was predominant. The old-fashioned recipe for this tart, and the way my dad did it, had whole cloves scattered among the layers to gently infuse the apples with flavor; we simply picked the cloves out as we ate. I still do it that way for grownups, but ground cloves are much more kid-friendly, and that way you can avoid the surprise of biting down on a clove. It’s a given that you serve this pie with softly whipped cream, unsweetened.
Makes 8 servings
½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 to 3 tablespoons cold water
1½ pounds (5 to 6) tart crisp apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled, quartered, cored, and sliced
cup sugar, plus a little extra for sprinkling
teaspoon whole cloves or ground cloves
1 Put the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Cut the butter into pieces and add it to the flour. Process until the mixture forms coarse crumbs. Beat one of the eggs with 3 tablespoons cold water. With the machine running, slowly pour this into the food processor. As soon as the dough gathers into a ball, stop adding liquid. Turn the pastry onto a floured surface and divide into two pieces, one consisting of two-thirds of the dough and the other one-third; wrap each in plastic and press to flatten into a round. Refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
2 When ready to bake, adjust the oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees F. Toss apples with the sugar and cloves.
3 Roll the larger piece of dough on a floured surface to a 13-inch circle; fit into a 10-inch tart pan or a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Turn apples into pie plate. Roll remaining portion of dough on a floured surface into a 10-inch circle. Lay the pastry circle over apples and pinch or press with a fork to seal. Beat the remaining egg with a 1 tablespoon of water and brush the surface of the pastry. Sprinkle with sugar, and decoratively slit the dough top with a paring knife.
4 Bake until pie is golden brown, 45 to 60 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
What we call “crumble” is what most Americans call a “crisp,” and it’s one of the desserts where we have a lot of common ground: sweetened fruit underneath a buttery topping of flour and sugar, maybe some oatmeal. Serve it warm with whipped cream, or a spoonful of custard, which we eat a lot in Ireland. I particularly love orange with rhubarb, but you can leave the orange, or stir in 1 to 2 cups sliced fresh strawberries. Melted butter in the topping makes bigger “clumps” of crumble. You can also use this crumble to top 6 cups peeled, cored, and thinly sliced apples tossed with a little sugar and cinnamon.
Makes 6 servings
8 cups sliced rhubarb (from about 2 pounds)
¾ cup sugar
Juice and zest of one orange
For the crumble topping:
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup light brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and butter a shallow 2-quart baking dish.
2 Spread the rhubarb slices in the dish and sprinkle with the sugar and orange zest and juice.
3 To make the crumble topping, in a medium bowl, place the dry ingredients, stirring to combine. Pour the melted butter over all and stir to distribute well. Then use your hands to pinch and squeeze the mix to make clumps.
4 Scatter the topping over the rhubarb and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden.
If you have meringues, berries, and cream, you have a summertime dessert that takes seconds to prepare. In grocery stores in Ireland, you can readily buy little meringue rounds, perhaps 4 to 5 inches across, that are just waiting to be topped with whatever berries are freshest and have been macerating in sugar and perhaps a little liqueur, like Irish Mist, if kids are not among the diners. Spoon the juicy berries on top of the meringues, top with a dollop of whipped cream, and you’re done. If you don’t have an Irish supermarket nearby, however, you’ll have to make your own meringues.
Makes 6 servings
4 large egg whites
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 pound fresh berries (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, or a mixture)
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar
1 pint whipping cream
1 Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F and line a rimless baking sheet with parchment paper (a little water or grease under each corner will help it stick).
2 Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites in a large bowl until frothy. With the beaters running, gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar and continue beating on high until stiff peaks form. Pipe or spoon 6 circles of meringue on the prepared baking sheet, about ¾-inch high and 5 inches in diameter. (You can also make two larger meringues.) Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until dry but not browned. Turn off the oven and leave the meringues to cool in the cooling oven. When completely cool, you can wrap the meringues tightly in an airtight ziplock bag.
3 An hour before serving, put the berries in a serving dish and spoon a little sugar over them, 1 to 2 tablespoons or to taste. Let them rest, stirring once or twice, to draw some of the juices out. Whip the cream until soft peaks form.
4 For each serving, lay one meringue on a serving plate. Top with a portion of berries and juice, and dollop whipped cream on top. Serve at once.
“Rice pudding” is such an ordinary name for this dish. I prefer what they call it on the tinned variety at the grocery store: creamed rice, which so much better sums up the unctuous quality of rice baked with cream and sugar. Cook it low and slow and serve it in small portions. It’s only lightly sweetened but very rich, a real grownup dessert instead of a kiddy treat, although kids shovel it down like ice cream. I like it chilled as well as warm, so leftovers are never a problem.
Makes 4 to 6 servings
2½ cups whole milk
2½ cups light cream
½ cup short-grain rice (use a risotto rice like Arborio) ¼ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
1 Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F and lightly butter a 2-quart casserole with a lid.
2 Put the milk and cream in the dish and stir in the rice, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Cut the butter in small pieces and dot it all over the top.
3 Cover the dish and bake for 2 hours, stirring it two or three times during cooking, until the pudding is creamy and thick with a golden-brown top.
This eggy, moist, all but flourless chocolate cake roll looks like a million bucks, but it’s surprisingly quick to make and a real favorite among kids, who love both the pinwheel design and the whipped cream filling. The secret to a successful Swiss roll is in rolling it up, parchment paper and all, as soon as it comes out of the oven. That way, you sort of “train” the hot cake to roll. Then you cool it a bit, unroll and peel off the paper liner, slather on whipped cream, and re-roll with ease. If your cake cracks, don’t worry. The whipped-cream filling will hold it together long enough to eat it, and if you want it to look prettier, make extra whipped cream and frost the outsides all over to hide the cracks. Cake flour makes a more delicate crumb, but all-purpose flour is fine as well.
Makes 8 servings
3 eggs, at room temperature
cup sugar
¼ cup cake flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup heavy cream
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
To finish:
3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and grease a 10 x 12-inch rimmed baking sheet (also known as a jelly roll pan). Line the pan with parchment paper or waxed paper, letting several inches of paper overhang either end of the pan, and lightly grease the paper, too (but not the overhang).
2 With an electric mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until thick and lemon colored. Sift the flour and cocoa over the surface and beat just until combined. Spread over the prepared pan, smoothing the batter out to the edges.
3 Bake for 10 minutes, just until the cake is set. Remove from the oven and, using potholders or tea towels to keep from burning your fingers, lift the hot cake in its paper lining onto a clean work surface. Working quickly, sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the confectioners’ sugar over the surface and roll up the cake, sugar, paper and all, starting from the short end. Let cool for 10 minutes. Then very gently unroll (it may crack a bit but just let it unroll itself without forcing it), peel off and discard the parchment, and allow the cake to cool to room temperature.
4 Whip the cream with the remaining 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar and the vanilla, until soft peaks form. While the cake is still barely warm, smooth the whipped cream all over the inside surface. Roll it gently back up. Place it seam-side down on a serving dish and sift the 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar over the cake. Use a serrated knife and a sawing motion to carefully cut into 8 slices.
This is a decidedly not fancy bread pudding but instead is more of a whimsical, comforting nursery dish. Its main distinction is that the slices of bread are buttered before being layered in the dish. It’s ideal for children, who often don’t like fancy flavors interfering with the sweet simplicity of a sweet dessert. But even adults will be delighted with the mouthwatering crunch of the edges of toasted bread against the delicate custard. In Ireland, this pudding is, like so many others, served with a spoonful of whipped cream.
Makes 6 servings
8 slices firm-textured white sandwich bread
¼ cup (½ stick) butter, softened
2 tablespoons raisins (optional)
3 eggs
2 cups milk, preferably whole milk
cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and butter a 1-quart baking dish. Butter all the bread on one side, right out to the edges, and cut each slice diagonally into 2 triangles.
2 Place the bread triangles in the baking dish cut side downward, arranging the triangles so the pointed tips stand up. Sprinkle with raisins.
3 In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, then beat in the milk and sugar. Add the vanilla and pour over the bread. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, so the bread can absorb the custard. It’s okay if the tips of the bread stick up from the egg and milk; they’ll brown nicely and make crunchy spots in the pudding. Sprinkle lightly with sugar so the finished pudding sparkles when it comes out of the oven.
4 Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the bread pudding puffs gently and is golden brown. Serve warm.
Fools are old-fashioned desserts of cooked fruit stirred into whipped cream. They shouldn’t be too sweet, to let the flavor of the fruit shine through. The sharp and tangy flavor of rhubarb is the perfect complement to the fluffy cream, and the pinkish-green streaks are beautiful, so be careful not to overcook the rhubarb into blandness or mush. Orange zest and juice really brighten the flavor. Let the rhubarb cool completely before swirling it in, and be sure to leave pinky-green streaks of the rhubarb rather than incorporating it completely. If you like, crumble a gingersnap on top of each serving.
Makes 4 servings
3 cups coarsely chopped rhubarb stalks (about 1 pound)
¼ cup sugar (or more to taste), plus 2 tablespoons
Zest and juice of 1 orange
2 cups whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Put the rhubarb, ¼ cup sugar, and the orange juice and zest in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring frequently, just until the rhubarb is tender but not until it’s pulpy, 6 to 7 minutes. Taste and add a bit more sugar if desired. Remove from the heat and cool completely, mashing slightly with a fork to break up any large chunks.
2 Whip the cream with the 2 tablespoons sugar until soft peaks form. Stir in the vanilla.
3 Pour the cooled rhubarb and their juice over the whipped cream, and fold the fruit in gently, allowing streaks to remain. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
4 Spoon into serving bowls or glasses.
In the spring, all across Ireland, locals know where to go hunting for the wild Irish blueberries known as fraughans (FROCK-ens). But you don’t need wild blueberries to enjoy this dessert. You can cook blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, or any other berry you like with a little sugar, and fold into the cream, as above. Gently cook in a large pot over medium heat 2 cups blueberries with ¼ cup sugar (and a little lemon zest, if you like), just until the berries start to pop, 3 to 4 minutes. Let cool completely before swirling into the cream, leaving streaks of purplish berries throughout.
As with some Irish food, the name may sound a little British, but the tart is ubiquitous in Ireland. It’s a pastry crust with a little bit of raspberry jam in it, topped with a dollop of frangipane (ground almonds creamed with butter, sugar, and egg) and baked until puffed and golden. You can make it as one large tart, but it’s more often seen as a finger food, as here. Why so little jam? I don’t know. Bakewell tarts are always a little scant on the jam, so if you want authentic, be meager.
1 recipe pastry from Apple Tart
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
¾ cup sugar
4 eggs
1½ cups ground almonds
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
¼ cup seedless raspberry jam
1 Preheat the oven 325 degrees F. Divide the pastry into 18 small balls of dough. Roll each one out to a small circle, and line the bottom of 18 muffin tins. Put the tins in the refrigerator to chill while you make the frangipane.
2 With beaters or standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Separate one of the eggs, reserving the white. Add three whole eggs and the fourth yolk to the butter-sugar and beat until light and creamy. Stir in the ground almonds and lemon juice and zest.
3 Put a dollop of the raspberry jam in the bottom of each pastry-lined tin. Divide the frangipane among the tins.
4 Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the frangipane is puffed and the pastry is golden. Cool in the muffin tins before gently running a knife around the inside edge of each to remove.
This famous Irish sweet is immortalized in the song “Did you treat your Mary Ann/ to dulse and yellowman/At the Ould Lammas Fair/ in Ballycastle-oh?” (Dulse is chewy seaweed—Mary Ann must have been a cheap date.) It dates back to the 17th century when it was made for the Lammas Fair, held the last Tuesday in August in Ballycastle, County Antrim. You can still find Yellowman at some country fairs, although with Ireland’s thriving confectionery industry, this old-fashioned country sweet is rare.
If you don’t want to make your own, you can experience a similar flavor and texture from a “Crunchie,” a commercial candy bar with a sort of “yellowman” center dipped in chocolate. They’re available as imports in some US shops.
But real Yellowman has a haunting flavor that modern chocolates don’t offer. It’s crunchy and brittle, like a toffee, but when you suck it for a bit, it becomes chewy in your mouth (in fact, mind your dental work!). True Yellowman is hammered off the larger block with a wooden mallet, so if yours seems very hard, you’ve probably got it right. Hammered into crumbs, it makes a great topping for ice cream or an addition to cookies.
Makes about 1 pound
Softened butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 16-ounce bottle light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 Grease a 9 3 9-inch baking pan generously with butter.
2 In a large, heavy-sided saucepan, place the sugar, corn syrup, and vinegar over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Place a candy thermometer in the mixture and bring it to a boil.
3 Boil, without stirring, until the thermometer registers 290 degrees F.
4 Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the baking soda with a wooden spoon. The mixture will foam up high. Immediately pour it into the prepared pan and smooth with the back of the spoon.
5 Allow to cool and when entirely cold and hard, turn it from the pan and break it into edible pieces with a wooden mallet or a rolling pin.
Yellowman is made with golden syrup, a pure, sugar-cane syrup, rather than the typical American corn syrup. If you can find Lyle’s Golden Syrup, a British brand seen in many US supermarkets (it’s in a squat green can with gold lettering), use it instead of corn syrup for best flavor.
Brown bread shows up at all sorts of meals. But a few years ago, clever pastry chefs figured out how to put it on the dessert table, too: Brown Bread Ice Cream. The ice cream is sometimes flavored with Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur, but you don’t need that in order to experience the joy of this unique dish. You don’t even need real Irish soda bread! Just toast coarse, whole wheat bread crumbs with a little brown sugar and stir them into softened vanilla ice cream (with a little Bailey’s, if you’re not feeding kids). The result is nutty, crunchy, caramel-like. It’s an instant classic.
Makes 4 to 6 servings
1 pint premium vanilla ice cream
¾ cup coarse whole wheat bread crumbs
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Spoon the pint of ice cream into a mixing bowl and soften the ice cream at room temperature until you can stir it easily. Don’t let it melt entirely.
2 While the ice cream is softening, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and line a small baking sheet with parchment or foil. Spread the crumbs over the foil and sprinkle them with the brown sugar. Take a little pinch of salt, raise your hand a good 8 inches over the crumbs, and sprinkle the salt—the height helps distribute it better.
3 Toast the crumbs in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring once or twice, until they’re toasty, brown and crisp. Remove and let cool completely. Reserve two tablespoons for topping.
4 Stir the remaining cooled crumbs into the ice cream and freeze until firm. Serve scoops with a light sprinkle of the reserved crumbs.
Old-fashioned trifles in the 19th century were sumptuous affairs, big bowls of homemade cake cubes doused in sherry, fresh summer fruit, custard, and cream. Modern Irish trifle is a little more prosaic— usually cake cubes and canned fruit cocktail with jelly (what Americans call Jello) poured over the cake and chilled before it’s covered in readymade custard and cream—but no less beloved for all that. This festive trifle is a happy medium between the two: Store-bought pound cake and fresh fruit, homemade custard and freshly whipped cream. You can make it in one big glass bowl or in little individual dishes as you prefer.
Makes 8 servings
4 cups fresh berries (blueberries, sliced strawberries, raspberries, or a combination)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons sherry or Irish whiskey, or more to taste (optional)
1 16-ounce pound cake, diced into ¾-inch cubes
For the custard:
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 cups whole milk
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons butter
To finish:
2 cups whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Toss the berries with the sugar and sherry or whiskey, if using. Set aside for 10 minutes, stirring a couple times to let the sugar draw the juices out of the fruit.
2 In 8 glass dishes or one large glass bowl, layer the cake cubes. Spoon on the fruit and its syrup to douse the cake. (If you like, this is the time to sprinkle on a little more sherry or whiskey, but don’t soak it.)
3 In a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat, whisk the sugar and cornstarch. Slowly whisk in the milk to prevent lumps forming, then beat in the egg yolks. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and cook, stirring constantly for 3 to 4 minutes, until thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla. Set aside to cool slightly.
4 While the custard cools, whip the cream with the sugar and vanilla till soft peaks form. Pour the custard over the cake and fruit, then top with the whipped cream. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours before serving, or as long as overnight, to let the flavors meld.
If you don’t have an Auntie Mary to make your Christmas pudding for you, the way I do, you’ll have to make your own. It’s a better option than buying one of those tiny, outrageously expensive ones you sometimes see in gourmet stores—they’re not very good anyway. The holiday pud used to be made with suet, but butter has long since replaced it in many households. It makes a pudding lighter in both taste and color, and I infinitely prefer it. It’s traditional to invite everyone in the house, including any guests, into the kitchen to take a turn stirring the pudding with a wooden spoon after all the ingredients are in. It’s supposed to bring luck on the household and the pudding. Ideally, you are supposed to make this pudding a month in advance of the holiday, but in America, I’ve made it as little as three days before Christmas. I’m sure we missed some complexity and maturity of flavors—but we didn’t care.
Makes 24 servings
1 cup light brown sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup dried currants
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup dark raisins
½ cup candied cherries
½ cup candied peel
1 12-ounce bottle Guinness Extra Stout
1 cup soft white bread crumbs
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 small apple, peeled, cored, and shredded
½ cup sliced almonds
Brandy for drizzling (optional)
Lightly sweetened whipped cream, flavored with brandy (if you like), for serving
1 Put the sugar, the orange and lemon zest, and all the dried fruit, candied cherries, and candied peel in a large bowl and pour the bottle of Guinness over everything, stirring to combine. Cover the bowl with a plate and leave it to sit overnight at room temperature.
2 The next day, in another large bowl, combine the bread crumbs and flour with all the spices. Add the butter and either cut it in with a pastry cutter, or do as traditional Irish cooks do and rub it in with your fingers. (This does work well, but I highly recommend taking off your rings first!)
3 Stir the eggs, grated apple, and almonds into the fruit and Guinness, then pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
(This is the part where you invite everyone to take a few stirs for luck.)
4 Grease a large pudding bowl with butter. You probably don’t have a pudding bowl, per se, but a 2-quart Pyrex—or other heatproof—bowl is ideal. Pour in the pudding mixture and cover the top with parchment paper and foil, pressing it down tightly around the rim. Tie a couple of rounds of kitchen string under the rim, and fashion a handle by tying a couple more pieces of string across the top, leaving enough slack so you can use it to pick up the bowl if necessary. (More important than picking it up is the extra insurance the top will stay on while the pudding boils.) Modern plastic pudding bowls have a fitted lid, but I don’t love boiling plastic, even the heatproof kind, for 3 hours when there’s something I’m going to eat inside.
5 Put the heatproof bowl in the bottom of a large stockpot and pour in water to come a little more than halfway up the sides of the bowl. Put it on the stove, bring the water to a boil over medium heat, and simmer gently for 3 hours, topping off the water from time to time. It helps to drop a few glass marbles or small round pebbles in the water—as the water gets low, they’ll rattle around to alert you to add more water.
6 After 3 hours, you can either lift out the pudding with your improvised handle (be careful!) or, better, let the pudding cool in the water and then lift it out.
7 Take off the wrapping and, if you like, poke a few holes in the top with a skewer and drizzle a few tablespoons of brandy over the pudding. Cover it up with fresh parchment and foil and refrigerate until Christmas Day. (In the British Isles, it would be left on a high shelf in the pantry, but they generally keep their houses cooler than Americans do, so we’re better off refrigerating the pudding to avoid any risk of mold.) If you’re “feeding” your pudding with brandy, drizzle on a little more every week. You can store your pudding for a good month or more before Christmas.
8 When you’re ready to serve, re-boil the pudding as above for 1 hour to heat it through. (I’ve heard you can remove the foil and microwave it on medium for half an hour, but I’ve never done it myself; no reason why it shouldn’t work though.) Heat a little brandy, maybe 1/3 cup, briefly in a small saucepan (cold brandy won’t light, no matter how many matches you hold to the surface), then set it alight with a match, pour the burning liquid over the pudding, and carry it, flaming, to the table. The liquor quickly burns itself out, but the show is incomparable! Slice up the warm pudding and top each piece with a dollop of cold, lightly sweetened whipped cream, with or without brandy flavoring.
Even in Ireland, many of us tend to buy our mincemeat these days. It’s partly that we may have forgotten to plan ahead—it has to mature for at least three weeks—and also that store versions can be so good. Because we tend not to have cool dark pantries in America, when I make my own mincemeat, I store it in the refrigerator. This version makes a good quart, enough for a round of mini mince pies, and also for a mince tart. The only challenge may be finding the suet, but larger supermarkets usually have it at Christmastime. Tightly sealed, this will stay good in the fridge for months.
Makes about 4 cups
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup shredded beef suet
½ cup raisins
½ cup golden raisins
½ cup currants
¼ cup Irish whiskey
¼ cup mixed peel
1 large green apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and diced very small
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons orange marmalade
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, stirring well to combine. Pack into a quart-size glass jar, pressing a circle of parchment paper onto the surface to keep air off it. Seal and refrigerate for at least 3 weeks before using to let the flavors mellow and mature.
Plain whipped cream is good enough for us all year ’round, but come the holidays, we want a little more, and that usually entails some brandy (or whiskey) in the whipped cream or perhaps some brandy butter. We’re a cream family at my house, but some people swear by brandy butter. Christmas hampers—large food-filled gift baskets—will sometimes contain a little jar of artisan brandy butter.
To make brandy cream to top your pudding or mince pie, beat 1 cup of whipping cream until soft peaks form, and then gently beat in 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar and 3 tablespoons brandy. Double or triple this recipe and repeat as needed from December 24th to January 1st.
To make brandy butter, a slather of which will melt temptingly on top of a slab of warm Christmas pudding, soften 1/2 cup butter and whip it till smooth. Then beat in 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and 3 tablespoons brandy. You can substitute Irish whiskey in either recipe, but brandy has a smoother flavor.
You do not have to make mincemeat to make a mincemeat pie. Even ordinary American supermarkets stock jars or Tetrapak boxes of mincemeat around Christmastime. Buy the base ready-made and then dress it up by adding goodies such as extra orange zest and juice along with some dried fruit like cherries or cranberries, for a tart burst of chewiness. And while it would be nice, of course, to make a buttery, homemade short-crust pastry to encase it, it’s also a lot easier to thaw out a roll of phyllo dough and use that instead. This way, you can have wonderful pastries that, for all intents and purposes, are homemade, with a lot less fuss.
Be sure to read the label when you purchase mincemeat! Some packages of mincemeat are intended to be reconstituted with water or orange juice, so if the mincemeat seems dry and crumbly, make sure you follow the package instructions so you’re starting with 2 cups of “finished” mincemeat before you add any additional ingredients.
Makes 2 dozen tarts
2 cups mincemeat
¼ cup dried cherries or cranberries
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
17 ounces frozen phyllo pastry, thawed
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish
Whipped cream, for serving
1 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and lightly grease two 12-cup muffin tins. Put the mincemeat in a bowl and stir in the dried cherries, orange zest and juice, and cloves.
2 Lay a sheet of phyllo on a clean work surface, and cover the remaining phyllo with a clean dish towel to keep it from drying out. Using a pastry brush, brush melted butter on the sheet, and continue layering and brushing with butter until you have about 8 sheets stacked up. Cut the stack into 6 squares, and push each buttered, stacked square down into a muffin cup, letting the edges stand upright. Repeat with more phyllo until all the muffin tins are filled.
3 Put a heaping tablespoon of mincemeat into the center of each phyllo-lined cup. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the mincemeat is bubbling and the phyllo is golden brown and crisp.
4 When all the mincemeat tarts are baked, sift confectioners’ sugar generously over them and serve them warm, dropping a spoonful of whipped cream on top of each just before it’s going to be eaten (if you let it sit, the cream will melt and the phyllo won’t be crisp!).
Is this a classic Irish dessert? It is nowadays. For some reason—perhaps simply that all Europeans really like good chocolate—Ireland has become host to some exceptional homegrown chocolatiers, and Irish-owned grocery stores such as Superquinn have chocolate aisles that are wonderful to behold. I’ll try anything at least once, and probably more than that, when it’s wrapped in packaging that suggests a craftsman rather than a corporation made it. By searching out such packaging, I’ve gotten to eat some truly exquisite chocolate. I think one of the best ways to savor a good chocolate, especially a potent dark one, is in an after-dinner truffle. You see After Eight dinner mints at parties all over Ireland, but increasingly, you see artisan or homemade truffles, too. Make these with the finest chocolate you can manage. If you’re shopping in American supermarkets, Ghirardelli or Scharffen Berger will produce excellent results.
Makes about 4 dozen truffles
cup heavy cream
8 ounces good-quality dark chocolate
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Bring the cream just to a boil in a saucepan. Immediately remove it from the heat and break the chocolate pieces into the hot cream. Stir gently to melt them.
2 Scrape the mixture into a bowl and let it stand in a cool place until firm, 1 to 2 hours. If the temperature in your kitchen is very warm, you can put it in the refrigerator, but check it every 5 minutes or so and don’t let it chill into complete stiffness. It should still be pliable.
3 Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a pair of small teaspoons (or your buttered hands) to form the chocolate mixture into very small balls, no larger than about 3/4 inch. Then deposit the balls on the parchment, smoothing the edges with your fingertips without overworking the chocolate.
4 Put the cocoa in a shallow bowl. Working in batches, toss the truffles gently in the cocoa. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. You can toss them again in cocoa just before serving. (They also look nice set into individual mini cupcake papers.)
