Cork pastry chef launches new book featuring 140 dessert recipes

Ballymaloe Desserts: the simplicity of its title belies the decades of almost scholastic study in the art of the perfect sweet course.

JR Ryall has been Head Pastry Chef at Ballymaloe House since 2010 when, at just 21, the late, great Mrs Myrtle Allen, sat down with him one autumn afternoon and offered him the role.

He would say he has been a student at the world-famous cookery school, hotel and restaurant from the age of four, when his aunt Evelyn arranged for him to visit Ballymaloe Cookery School in 1992.

At the end of the visit, cookery school co-founder, Darina Allen, handed JR a copy of her book, Simply Delicious, with an inscription inside that read: “For John Robert, who will be a great chef one day when he grows up.”

Well, he did grow up; he did take up the position of Ballymaloe’s Head Pastry Chef and worked hard to earn his reputation as a master of his craft, scooping awards as he did.

Ballymaloe Desserts is JR Ryall’s first book, the one he has been waiting to write his entire life. It’s a curated collection of 140 recipes from the Ballymaloe repertoire, some old, some new, and all with the home cook in mind.

It was at the age of 13, attending a bread-making course at the cookery school gifted to him by his mother, that JR got his first taste for kitchen life, staying on to do a little bit of work experience. He came back the following summer for more.

“That was the gateway into Ballymaloe for me,” he says.

When JR was 15, he got his first taste of the restaurant kitchen at Ballymaloe House.

“I arrived at the kitchen door, and I watched everything that was going on in the kitchen. I tasting a couple of things I’d never heard of before: there was a lemon verbena sorbet on the menu - I tasted it and it blew my mind, and a chilled beetroot soup that was mesmerising with its colour.”

But the night ended less well, JR slipped, spilling a bowl of lettuce, and, “mortified, I just ran away! I’d had this amazing night, but by the end I’d decided I probably would never go back into a kitchen again!”

But the next day, he was sent back again to Ballymaloe House – this time to the pastry kitchen.

“It was like a different world; a room of its own off the main kitchen so I didn’t have to look at anyone who saw me the night before! I suddenly felt at home. I saw things that fascinated me: the biggest batch of meringue I’d ever seen being whipped up, beautiful heart-shaped shortbread biscuits dipped in chocolate, and I just loved it.”

By the time JR was off to college, his academic year was punctuated with returns to Ballymaloe House for summer work. It was here he met his mentor and great friend, the late Mrs Allen.

“I immediately had a connection with her. We got on so well, I ired her and looked up to her so much, and she took a great amount of time and patience to teach me how to follow her recipes, how to taste things and think about tasting things.

“Over those years, I became very comfortable cooking; I began to know there was something in it for me.”

JR often felt his summers at Mrs Allen’s side were his true education, not at Trinity. In his final year of studies, Mrs Allen offered him the job of Head Pastry Chef.

“We shook hands, and she held the position for me until I finished my last exam - and that’s it, really; I never left!

“That time with Mrs Allen, I really learned the importance of doing things that make you happy. Being in the kitchen made me so happy; not everyone so young gets to realise the benefit of that. We had a really good mentor-student relationship throughout the years, and I’m very grateful to her.”

Many of Mrs Allen’s original recipes pepper the pages of Ballymaloe Desserts, and these sit beside more contemporary creations.

“I wanted this book to feel like a breath of fresh air, and that’s something I’ve carried throughout the project. I didn’t want anything to be too complicated; I wanted the recipes to feel approachable and suitable – a simple yet elevated vernacular.

“I wanted to breathe life into a repertoire that can easily be overlooked. Because a lot of the dishes we cook are rooted in the classics, they’re things people are familiar with and, in a day when we are so trend focused, I get great satisfaction from gentle movements in a dish that brings life to it.

“I hope it captures someone’s imagination to try a recipe they used to love, reconnecting with dishes we know are great. That’s a lot of what Ballymaloe is; much as we are about trying the new thing, we are also very appreciative of our culinary heritage, and I try to weave that into the book. It looks very contemporary on the surface but when people dive in, they see my own love of things that are genuinely good.”

JR says his day-to-day cooking is no different to anyone else in their home kitchen, and as such the recipes are grounded in traditional techniques and low-fi equipment. It also means this a book of recipes that are true to the originals served up throughout the year on that famous dessert trolley.

“When it came to putting the recipes together for the book, it was quite an easy task. The difficult thing was deciding which recipes to leave out! I had to distil it into a collection, and I feel as though every recipe has earned its place.

“Some of the recipes are showstoppers, things that take a little more time, like the Irish Coffee Meringue Gateau, but there are lots that you can do in a few minutes: a lemon posset needs three ingredients, and you’d have it made in the time it would take to brew a good cup of coffee.”

The book took considerably more time to come to life – ten years. It started with Hazel Allen asking if JR was interested in writing a little book of desserts for the hall table.

“The idea was very appealing to me; I think anyone who loves cooking likes the idea of writing down their ideas and sharing them. But I couldn’t picture what the book would look like in my mind, so I let the idea sit on the shelf. It wasn’t until three years ago where a couple of close friends outside of Ballymaloe said I should think about writing a book.”

One of those close friends was celebrated chef, award-winning author and New York Times columnist, David Tanis who also wrote the foreword to Ballymaloe Desserts.

“When somebody like that says that I should do something, it resonated and made me think a little differently about it.”

A few days later, “with the encouragement of a few good friends,” JR started the process, seeking advice, gaining an agent and then a publisher, Phaidon Press.

“When I started imagining this book, I felt there was a reason to write it. Part of it was Mrs Allen had ed away and I almost felt a duty to pin down my feelings around food that she had ed onto me, her ethos I had absorbed. I knew I could channel that into the book, so it felt like the right time. I don’t think I could have written any other book.

“Mrs Allen told me when she wrote The Ballymaloe Cookbook, she wrote it so the recipes wouldn’t be lost, and I’ve never forgotten that. In a way, I hope this book would be an extension of that project – capturing our newer dishes and putting them side by side with those that we cherish. I hope she’d be very pleased with the work.”

During late September, JR will be taking his sweet gospel on tour to the US and Canada with a mix of counter take-overs at famed bakeries, dessert course take-overs in restaurants, talks at culinary institutes - a Sunday lunch pop-up at King in New York the most special of all.

“For me [King] was the beginning because it was there David Tanis said I needed to write a book. It’s nice to go back because I feel like it’s a homecoming – it really feels right cooking there.”

Amongst the glitz and glamour of book launches, book tours and kitchen takeovers at some of the world’s hottest restaurants, it seems fitting that, when I ask JR what’s his favourite recipe in Ballymaloe Desserts, he choses the most traditional and one that’s on the trolley every service.

“Carrageen Moss Pudding, a traditional Irish dessert of seaweed-set milk. The Ballymaloe version is soft, delicate with a wonderful flavour which we pair with various fruits throughout the year.

“To me, it really sums up the Ballymaloe philosophy: take a few things and make something wonderful from it. I think it’s a very special thing and I’m thrilled it’s in the book.”

Ballymaloe Desserts is available to purchase from Phaidon Press, €49.95. See www.phaidon.com

Here JR shares some recipes from the publication

COMPOTE OF APPLE, WILD BLACKBERRY AND SWEET GERANIUM

Ingredients (Serves 6)

225 g/8 oz (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) granulated (white) sugar

600 ml/1 pint (2½ cups) cold water

8 large sweet geranium leaves

4 large dessert apples, e.g., Cox’s Orange Pippin or Golden Delicious

225 g/8 oz blackberries

Method:

• Put the sugar, cold water and sweet geranium leaves into a pan and place on a medium heat. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes.
• Meanwhile, peel the apples with a vegetable peeler, keeping a good round shape. Quarter them, remove the core and trim the ends. Slice each quarter into 5-mm/¼-inch thick moon-shaped segments.
• Add the apples to the hot syrup, keeping the heat at medium. Cut a circle of baking paper just large enough to fit the pan, snip a small hole in the centre and cover the fruit with it. Bring to a simmer and poach until the slices of apple are tender. This usually takes 5–10 minutes, depending on the variety of apple.
• A few minutes before the end of cooking, add the blackberries. When the apples are tender, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool. Juices from the berries will gradually stain the apple a beautiful purple colour. Serve chilled with praline, vanilla, caramel or honeycomb ice cream.

IRISH COFFEE MERINGUE GATEAU

Ingredients (Serves 8)

FOR THE MERINGUE

3 teaspoons instant coffee powder (not granules)

170 g/6 oz (1 cups) plus 2 teaspoons icing (confectioners’) sugar

3 large (US extra-large) egg whites

TO ASSEMBLE AND DECORATE

3 tablespoons Irish whiskey

600 ml/20 fl oz (2½ cups) whipped cream · icing (confectioners’) sugar, for sprinkling · unsweetened cocoa powder, for sprinkling

TO MAKE THE MERINGUE

• Preheat the oven to 130°C/265°F/Gas Mark 1. Cover a large baking sheet with baking paper and use a pencil to draw three 18-cm/7-inch diameter circles on the paper. Flip the paper over so the pencil is on the underside.
• Sift the instant coffee powder and 2 teaspoons of icing (confectioners’) sugar together and set aside.
• Place the egg whites and 170 g/6 oz (1 cups) of icing sugar into the spotlessly clean bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Begin whisking at medium speed. After about 1 minute, increase the speed to full and whisk until the mixture forms stiff peaks, about 10 minutes.
• Gently fold the coffee and sugar mixture into the stiff meringue, let it sit for about 30 seconds and fold once more. In this time the coffee powder will begin to dissolve into the meringue.
• Transfer some of the mixture to a piping (pastry) bag and pipe twelve small meringue kisses on the lined baking sheet. Evenly spread the remaining meringue in three thin disks, using the pencil circles as a guide. Bake for about 1 hour until crisp and set. When the meringue is cooked it will lift easily away from the baking paper. Allow to cool completely.

TO ASSEMBLE AND DECORATE

In a bowl, fold the whiskey into the whipped cream. Put one of the meringue discs on a serving plate. Spread or pipe just less than half of the whiskey cream over the meringue, taking care to keep the edges neat.

Put the second circle of meringue on top and cover with a similar amount of cream as before. Place the third meringue circle on top and press down lightly. Decorate the top with the Remaining whiskey cream, the coffee meringue kisses and a light dusting of icing sugar and cocoa powder.