Baileys Carrageen Pudding
It’s easy to forget that Baileys has only been around for fifty years or so… while carrageen has been part of Irish life for a...
It’s the berries
Berries of many kinds have been on the Irish dessert menu for centuries, if not millennia. Blackberries, along with raspberries, fraughans and wild strawberries, were here from the time when...
Everyday Gingerbread with Orange-Ginger Icing
Gingerbread would have been a perennial adornment of the tea trolley over the last century or so when the Irish housewife was doing the baking. It didn’t call for exotic...
The Art of the Irish Tea Trolley
There was a time in Ireland not so long ago when the arrival of a guest meant the imminent production of the Tea Trolley. Besides...
Porter Cake
Somewhere along the line in the 1800’s, it occurred to somebody in Ireland that the dark beer called porter would make a good addition to the robust dark flavor of...
Nothing to do with your luggage
Porter was (and is) a style of dark beer which began to be brewed in England and Ireland in the mid-1700’s. It seems to have been an improvement on the...
Creamy Baileys Mousse Pie
When you go looking for Baileys pies (or pudding pies, or mousse pies) on the Web, you’ll find lots of them, but from the Irish...
Cranachan
Almost all Celtic countries have a dessert that’s a variation on this theme: cream, oatmeal, honey, fruit, sometimes nuts, and the local firewater — in this case, Irish whiskey. Try...
Gurriers
Everybody in Dublin knows what “gurriers” means. It’s an old word for street kids — with the implication that they’re the kind of kids who’re usually getting into mischief: messers,...
Gur Cake
Invented by Dublin bakers at the turn of the 20th century, gur cake was a way to use up unsold day-old bread or cake and...
Fad food of the 1600s: the Orange
We take them for granted now, year round. But once upon a time, in England and Ireland, oranges were a hot new snack that it was cool to eat… and...
Apple Upside Down Cake
Great for any time you’ve got lots of apples. Also great for making the best of the few you have.