Classic recipes from Ballymaloe Desserts
“Pears are one of my favourite fruits,” says pastry chef JR Ryall. “And they are so misunderstood.”
At Ballymaloe House in County Cork , Ireland, where Ryall oversees the dessert menu, they grow 11 different types. The early pear varieties are ready for picking, ripening and using swiftly in August and September. The later varieties, which they harvest in October and November, are hardier and keep in cold storage throughout the winter.
“Because we grow a lot of our own pears and we have a mixture of varieties, we’re self-sufficient in pears basically from August through to February,” says Ryall.
This sunny recipe for pears poached in saffron and cardamom originally came from actress and chef Madhur Jaffrey , who has taught several classes at the Ballymaloe Cookery School over the years. Ever since she shared the golden-hued dish, it’s been part of the pastry kitchen’s repertoire.
“It’s a wonderful combination of how global flavours can pair — no pun intended — with something that we have ourselves, like these beautiful pear varieties,” says Ryall.
“As we move through the season, and we use each pear variety from the early to the later, the flavour of the dish changes gently, but it’s still so delicious.”
Ryall’s chocolate fudge pudding is among the most family-style dishes in Ballymaloe Desserts, and a lunchtime go-to.
Whether you’ve made a big Caesar salad for friends or roasted a chicken , it’s a casual and inviting way to end the meal, says Ryall. Especially when served warm from the oven with a bowl of whipped cream to pass around.
“It’s actually the perfect thing,” he adds. “Nothing fancy, and everyone is going to love it.”
The key to a successful pudding is to use a good semisweet chocolate, Ryall explains. (Sixty-two per cent cacao is ideal.) “There’s no point in pushing it into the territory of chocoholic. This is just something that should appeal to everyone,” he highlights.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are or what you’re into. Those sort of old-fashioned, warm puddings baked in a dish, they really speak to all of us, I think, and I particularly like that one.”
The third recipe, a showstopping ice cream bombe , includes both summer and winter variations.
In the summertime, Ryall likes to mould vanilla, blackcurrant and strawberry ice creams in a bowl — during wintertime, chocolate, praline and coffee. You could also layer the ice creams in a baking pan, he suggests, for a striped effect.
“The key to a bombe, really, is that you pick three flavours that are going to marry really well together,” says Ryall.
Served with jugs of warm toffee sauce or chocolate sauce — “maybe both if you really want to push the boat out” — the winter variation “is just wickedly good.”
He recalls an event they hosted at Ballymaloe where he made 20 ice cream bombes decorated with Amarena cherries and gold leaf — one for each table of 10. The guests carved up the bombes at the end of the meal, warm toffee sauce melting into the ice cream as they poured it over.
It may be more labourintensive than the other two recipes but Ryall welcomes having a kitchen project like a bombe. After a busy day at work, he often boils or poaches an egg for his supper. But there are other times when there’s nothing he would rather do than create something more involved.
“Even though I’m young, I’m terribly old-fashioned. I actually quite liked spending time in the kitchen. So, having a project like a bombe on a rainy day is really fun. And then there is such immense satisfaction when you set that on the table and you cut into it, and there are the oohs and ahhs,” says Ryall.
“That’s one of the wonderful things about the world of desserts. I’m not an advocate for people eating more sugar — I’d be all about make it better and eat less of it. But if you’ve got a big gathering and you’ve got a bombe you can share with people, it’s just so much fun.”