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Ballymaloe Desserts: Classic recipes from the Irish countryside

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In his cookbook debut, pastry chef JR Ryall presents the dishes he loves to make at Ireland’s storied Ballymaloe House

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Our cookbook of the week is Ballymaloe Desserts, Iconic Recipes and Stories from Ireland by JR Ryall. To try a recipe from the book, check out: Pears poached with saffron and cardamom, chocolate fudge pudding and ice cream bombe.

Advertisement 2

Article content

Pastry chef JR Ryall has always been interested in flavour. Recognizing his extraordinary curiosity, his aunt, Evelyn, took him on a tour of the acclaimed Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland when he was just four years old.

Article content

“Now when I meet a four-year-old, I realize how young that is. It’s unusual. It was slightly odd, I suppose. And it’s not that I was a supertaster. It’s not like I could taste cucumber and couldn’t enjoy it or that sort of thing,” says Ryall.

“But I suppose the way some people connected with music and learned to play instruments very young, I really cared about what things tasted like.”

As Ryall writes in his cookbook debut, Ballymaloe Desserts (Phaidon, 2022), visiting the storied kitchens and gardens that day is one of his earliest memories.

Advertisement 3

Article content

At the end of the tour, Darina Allen — creator of the cooking school and daughter-in-law of Ballymaloe’s founder, the late chef and farm-to-table pioneer Myrtle Allen — gave him a copy of her book, Simply Delicious (1992). Inside the cover, she wrote: “For John Robert, who will be a great chef when he grows up.”

“It sowed a seed,” says Ryall, who has been head pastry chef at Ballymaloe House since 2010. “And in a way, from then, I found Darina and the cookery school, and Ballymaloe House very aspirational.”

Throughout his childhood, Ryall was a kid who baked. People bought him baking books and asked him to make cookies and cakes for parties. He likens learning how to bake to acquiring a language: Once you grasp the basics, the rest falls into place.

Advertisement 4

Article content

At 15, Ryall started working at Ballymaloe, taking a taxi from boarding school every weekend for his Saturday shift in the pastry kitchen. Meeting Myrtle (whom he refers to as Mrs. Allen), cemented that cooking would become his career.

“She absolutely dazzled me. And there aren’t many times I believe in someone’s life where somebody else dazzles you. I was just immediately taken by her,” recalls Ryall. “I fell into her orbit, and I never left.”

Ballymaloe Desserts by JR Ryall
Ballymaloe Desserts, Iconic Recipes and Stories from Ireland by JR Ryall. Photo by Phaidon

It was an unlikely relationship, he adds. Myrtle was in her late 70s when they met, Ryall a teenager. She became his mentor and, despite the age difference, one of his best friends.

Looking back, Ryall now realizes that of all the lessons Myrtle taught him during the last 15 years of her life, the most impactful was the importance of doing what you love.

Advertisement 5

Article content

“I loved tasting. And because Mrs. Allen took time to teach me how to taste, she was really teaching me how to do the thing that I loved better,” he says.

Even when he left County Cork to study natural science at Trinity College Dublin, Ryall continued working at Ballymaloe — returning to the pastry kitchen every summer and holiday season.

After graduating with a major in biochemistry — “the scenic route” to becoming a pastry chef — Ryall moved back to Ballymaloe to oversee the dessert menu. In carrying Myrtle’s legacy forward, he is committed to using great produce and follows her philosophy of “waste not, want not and make the most of what you have.”

Whether a bumper crop of redcurrants or glut of plums, planning the dessert menu often comes down to solving a problem. “The most important part of the job isn’t the cheffy bit for me. It’s not making the dish. It’s the response you have to what’s going on,” says Ryall.

Advertisement 6

Article content

  1. Cook this: Three classic recipes from Ballymaloe Desserts

  2. “It really was based in everyday life and reality but with that mixture of imagination and dreaming of things,” Odette Williams says of her second cookbook, Simple Pasta.

    Odette Williams on the pure pleasure of Simple Pasta

The idea of writing a cookbook first arose a decade ago, when Hazel Allen (Ballymaloe’s general manager and Myrtle’s daughter-in-law), asked Ryall if he would “write a little book to sell from the hall table.” She pictured a collection of 20 recipes stapled together for customers to pick up as they were leaving.

It wasn’t until three and a half years ago, though, during a conversation with chef and author David Tanis — a close friend of his who wrote the book’s foreword — that Ryall began to imagine what Ballymaloe Desserts could be.

“It may well be the only book I ever write. I’m not trying to make a career move. But I did then feel like there was a book that could be written. And a lot of it, from a very deep personal level,” he says.

Advertisement 7

Article content

“I feel like it’s a bit of a love letter to Mrs. Allen. Kind of a thank you for teaching me to do the things I love.”

Classic recipes are at the core of Ballymaloe Desserts. Some — such as Almond Meringue Gâteau with Chocolate and Rum Cream, Summer Pudding and Orange Mousse with Chocolate Wafers — have been used at Ballymaloe House since the 1960s, when Myrtle converted her home into what would become a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Others are of a “newer generation”: desserts that have evolved at Ballymaloe or been shared by guest chefs teaching at the cooking school and added to the sweet trolley’s rotating offering. By featuring the classic and contemporary side by side, Ryall hopes to breathe new life into the dishes he cherishes (some of which have been around for half a century or more) but are often overlooked.

Advertisement 8

Article content

“I’m hoping (the book) resists all the trends. I don’t drop tahini into anything, for example,” says Ryall. “I’m not trying to do anything cool. But I think, from my own point of view, the cool thing about the book is that I resist all of that and I simply present the dishes that I love to make.”

If I could start a fashion, it would be to recapture some forgotten flavours, or to preserve some that may soon die.

Myrtle founded Ballymaloe in 1964, seven years before Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse, Ryall underscores. Her appreciation of fresh, local and wild foods — and the techniques used to harvest and handle them — was revolutionary and predates the farm-to-table movement.

She collected seaweed along the rugged coastline for her carrageen moss pudding (“a Ballymaloe speciality“), picked wild watercress from the stream behind the house, enlisted local children to pick blackberries (“and paid them fairly at the door”), and connected with the likes of the late Veronica Steele, “doyen of farmhouse cheese,” so she could serve the groundbreaking, washed-rind Milleens at Ballymaloe.

Advertisement 9

Article content

“I get great inspiration from it, and I get excited about it because it’s still an example that works half a century later,” says Ryall of Myrtle’s mentality. “(It) underpins what Ballymaloe is and was about.”

Passing on “forgotten skills of cookery” was an important part of Myrtle’s work, he highlights. She sought to understand what had been done before and why, and taught others so the tradition could continue.

Ryall quotes a passage from The Ballymaloe Cookbook (first published in 1977), which he feels encapsulates her focus on culinary heritage:

“Fashion in food is more apparent as Nouvelle Cuisine sweeps through the smart kitchens of Europe. If I could start a fashion, it would be to recapture some forgotten flavours, or to preserve some that may soon die.

Advertisement 10

Article content

“’The butter your sister is sending us is very good,’ I said to my neighbour one day. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that field always made good butter.’ That is long ago and the fragrance is almost forgotten.”

Ryall’s palate craved what Myrtle taught him. And she, in turn, appreciated the “slightly modern edge” he brought to the Ballymaloe repertoire. Though Myrtle died in 2018 at the age of 94, he considers Ballymaloe Desserts a hybrid of them both.

Ryall cooked and styled all the dishes in the book as they do in the pastry kitchen today. His friend, writer and photographer Cliodhna Prendergast, shot the book at Ballymaloe. They were a team of two, without a studio or assistants.

Whether old or new, the 130 recipes reflect what Ryall learned cooking at his mentor’s side: how to taste, the value of proportions, and the importance of considering flavour and freshness. “The dishes taste the way Myrtle made me understand how delicious food could be.”

Get the latest from Laura Brehaut straight to your inbox

Advertisement

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    Best Buy Black Friday Price Now deal event.
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    Fendi Baguette.

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In his cookbook debut, pastry chef JR Ryall presents the dishes he loves to make at Ireland’s storied Ballymaloe House

Get the latest from Laura Brehaut straight to your inbox

Article content

Our cookbook of the week is Ballymaloe Desserts, Iconic Recipes and Stories from Ireland by JR Ryall. To try a recipe from the book, check out: Pears poached with saffron and cardamom, chocolate fudge pudding and ice cream bombe.

Advertisement 2

Article content

Pastry chef JR Ryall has always been interested in flavour. Recognizing his extraordinary curiosity, his aunt, Evelyn, took him on a tour of the acclaimed Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland when he was just four years old.

Article content

“Now when I meet a four-year-old, I realize how young that is. It’s unusual. It was slightly odd, I suppose. And it’s not that I was a supertaster. It’s not like I could taste cucumber and couldn’t enjoy it or that sort of thing,” says Ryall.

“But I suppose the way some people connected with music and learned to play instruments very young, I really cared about what things tasted like.”

As Ryall writes in his cookbook debut, Ballymaloe Desserts (Phaidon, 2022), visiting the storied kitchens and gardens that day is one of his earliest memories.

Advertisement 3

Article content

At the end of the tour, Darina Allen — creator of the cooking school and daughter-in-law of Ballymaloe’s founder, the late chef and farm-to-table pioneer Myrtle Allen — gave him a copy of her book, Simply Delicious (1992). Inside the cover, she wrote: “For John Robert, who will be a great chef when he grows up.”

“It sowed a seed,” says Ryall, who has been head pastry chef at Ballymaloe House since 2010. “And in a way, from then, I found Darina and the cookery school, and Ballymaloe House very aspirational.”

Throughout his childhood, Ryall was a kid who baked. People bought him baking books and asked him to make cookies and cakes for parties. He likens learning how to bake to acquiring a language: Once you grasp the basics, the rest falls into place.

Advertisement 4

Article content

At 15, Ryall started working at Ballymaloe, taking a taxi from boarding school every weekend for his Saturday shift in the pastry kitchen. Meeting Myrtle (whom he refers to as Mrs. Allen), cemented that cooking would become his career.

“She absolutely dazzled me. And there aren’t many times I believe in someone’s life where somebody else dazzles you. I was just immediately taken by her,” recalls Ryall. “I fell into her orbit, and I never left.”

Ballymaloe Desserts by JR Ryall
Ballymaloe Desserts, Iconic Recipes and Stories from Ireland by JR Ryall. Photo by Phaidon

It was an unlikely relationship, he adds. Myrtle was in her late 70s when they met, Ryall a teenager. She became his mentor and, despite the age difference, one of his best friends.

Looking back, Ryall now realizes that of all the lessons Myrtle taught him during the last 15 years of her life, the most impactful was the importance of doing what you love.

Advertisement 5

Article content

“I loved tasting. And because Mrs. Allen took time to teach me how to taste, she was really teaching me how to do the thing that I loved better,” he says.

Even when he left County Cork to study natural science at Trinity College Dublin, Ryall continued working at Ballymaloe — returning to the pastry kitchen every summer and holiday season.

After graduating with a major in biochemistry — “the scenic route” to becoming a pastry chef — Ryall moved back to Ballymaloe to oversee the dessert menu. In carrying Myrtle’s legacy forward, he is committed to using great produce and follows her philosophy of “waste not, want not and make the most of what you have.”

Whether a bumper crop of redcurrants or glut of plums, planning the dessert menu often comes down to solving a problem. “The most important part of the job isn’t the cheffy bit for me. It’s not making the dish. It’s the response you have to what’s going on,” says Ryall.

Advertisement 6

Article content

  1. Cook this: Three classic recipes from Ballymaloe Desserts

  2. “It really was based in everyday life and reality but with that mixture of imagination and dreaming of things,” Odette Williams says of her second cookbook, Simple Pasta.

    Odette Williams on the pure pleasure of Simple Pasta

The idea of writing a cookbook first arose a decade ago, when Hazel Allen (Ballymaloe’s general manager and Myrtle’s daughter-in-law), asked Ryall if he would “write a little book to sell from the hall table.” She pictured a collection of 20 recipes stapled together for customers to pick up as they were leaving.

It wasn’t until three and a half years ago, though, during a conversation with chef and author David Tanis — a close friend of his who wrote the book’s foreword — that Ryall began to imagine what Ballymaloe Desserts could be.

“It may well be the only book I ever write. I’m not trying to make a career move. But I did then feel like there was a book that could be written. And a lot of it, from a very deep personal level,” he says.

Advertisement 7

Article content

“I feel like it’s a bit of a love letter to Mrs. Allen. Kind of a thank you for teaching me to do the things I love.”

Classic recipes are at the core of Ballymaloe Desserts. Some — such as Almond Meringue Gâteau with Chocolate and Rum Cream, Summer Pudding and Orange Mousse with Chocolate Wafers — have been used at Ballymaloe House since the 1960s, when Myrtle converted her home into what would become a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Others are of a “newer generation”: desserts that have evolved at Ballymaloe or been shared by guest chefs teaching at the cooking school and added to the sweet trolley’s rotating offering. By featuring the classic and contemporary side by side, Ryall hopes to breathe new life into the dishes he cherishes (some of which have been around for half a century or more) but are often overlooked.

Advertisement 8

Article content

“I’m hoping (the book) resists all the trends. I don’t drop tahini into anything, for example,” says Ryall. “I’m not trying to do anything cool. But I think, from my own point of view, the cool thing about the book is that I resist all of that and I simply present the dishes that I love to make.”

If I could start a fashion, it would be to recapture some forgotten flavours, or to preserve some that may soon die.

Myrtle founded Ballymaloe in 1964, seven years before Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse, Ryall underscores. Her appreciation of fresh, local and wild foods — and the techniques used to harvest and handle them — was revolutionary and predates the farm-to-table movement.

She collected seaweed along the rugged coastline for her carrageen moss pudding (“a Ballymaloe speciality“), picked wild watercress from the stream behind the house, enlisted local children to pick blackberries (“and paid them fairly at the door”), and connected with the likes of the late Veronica Steele, “doyen of farmhouse cheese,” so she could serve the groundbreaking, washed-rind Milleens at Ballymaloe.

Advertisement 9

Article content

“I get great inspiration from it, and I get excited about it because it’s still an example that works half a century later,” says Ryall of Myrtle’s mentality. “(It) underpins what Ballymaloe is and was about.”

Passing on “forgotten skills of cookery” was an important part of Myrtle’s work, he highlights. She sought to understand what had been done before and why, and taught others so the tradition could continue.

Ryall quotes a passage from The Ballymaloe Cookbook (first published in 1977), which he feels encapsulates her focus on culinary heritage:

“Fashion in food is more apparent as Nouvelle Cuisine sweeps through the smart kitchens of Europe. If I could start a fashion, it would be to recapture some forgotten flavours, or to preserve some that may soon die.

Advertisement 10

Article content

“’The butter your sister is sending us is very good,’ I said to my neighbour one day. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that field always made good butter.’ That is long ago and the fragrance is almost forgotten.”

Ryall’s palate craved what Myrtle taught him. And she, in turn, appreciated the “slightly modern edge” he brought to the Ballymaloe repertoire. Though Myrtle died in 2018 at the age of 94, he considers Ballymaloe Desserts a hybrid of them both.

Ryall cooked and styled all the dishes in the book as they do in the pastry kitchen today. His friend, writer and photographer Cliodhna Prendergast, shot the book at Ballymaloe. They were a team of two, without a studio or assistants.

Whether old or new, the 130 recipes reflect what Ryall learned cooking at his mentor’s side: how to taste, the value of proportions, and the importance of considering flavour and freshness. “The dishes taste the way Myrtle made me understand how delicious food could be.”

Get the latest from Laura Brehaut straight to your inbox

Advertisement

  1. Jillian Harris talks building a brand, setting boundaries

    B.C. content creator, entrepreneur talks latest projects and lessons learned.

    Jillian Harris wears pieces from her latest collection for Joe Fresh.
  2. Starting today, Best Buy offers early Black Friday deals — and they’re good

    Discounts on Vitamix blenders, TVs, laptops, earphones and more

    Best Buy Black Friday Price Now deal event.
  3. Advertisement 1

  4. How to make latte art, according to Canada’s champion

    A surprisingly beginner-friendly breakdown

    Latte art by Venice MV.
  5. Style Q&A: Canadian brand offers ‘clean, vegan, multi-use, and genderless’ skincare

    Simplifying skincare was the goal of entrepreneur Nitasha Goel when she set out to create her brand, The Cure Skincare.

    The Cure Skincare Face + Neck Serum, $68.
  6. Style File: Four fashionable ‘it’ bags for fall

    From an icon design celebrating 25 years in the fashion spotlight, to a sweet, vegan-friendly bag created from a Canadian collaboration, here are four fashionable handbags to consider grabbing this season.

    Fendi Baguette.

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

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