It’s always fun to create over-the-top green treats for St. Patrick’s Day, but there is nothing more satisfying than creating a traditional Irish dessert for your family and friends. That’s why I’m helping you out a little – providing you with a time-tested Irish dessert and something to wash it down. While they’re not doused in green sugar or slathered with icing, these desserts are sure to please anyone, Irish or not.
Apple Amber
Apple amber is my favorite Irish dessert, to make and to eat. It has been baked for more than one hundred years, and it only takes a taste to see how it’s stuck around for so long. While originally prepared without the crust, this recipe from European Cuisines adds one because it absorbs the apple mousse’s juice as it bakes:
Pastry dough for single-crust pie
4 cooking apples, cored and peeled (two cooking apples one large Gala for sweeter pie)
2 tbsp water
1 lemon’s juice, strained
3 lg eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
1) Prepare piecrust in a greased pie dish, glass or dull metal.
2) Preheat oven to 350° F.
3) Bake piecrust blind (15-20 min), set aside until cooled.
4) Coarsely grate apples. Add water to small, heavy pot. Heat until steaming. Add apples and cook over medium heat until reduced to a rough puree (a few apple chunks add texture.) Remove from heat.
5) Add lemon juice and all but 1/8 cup sugar to puree. Beat egg yolks lightly. Add yolk to puree and stir well. Spoon into pie shell and bake for twenty minutes, until bubbling.
6) Meanwhile, start beating the egg whites, gradually adding the remaining sugar. Whip until stiff peaks form. Once the pie is baked, take out and cover the top with meringue. Return to oven and bake until meringue is browned, about 10 minutes.
Traditional Irish coffee
While it is a fairly new edition to the Irish menu, a jig of Jamison in strong coffee is one of their most famous drinks. This recipe comes from Irish Coffee Recipes:
6 oz. strong brewed coffee
1 tsp brown sugar
1.25 oz. Irish whiskey
heavy cream
1) Whip heavy cream. Put in refrigerator to chill.
2) Mix brown sugar with coffee and whiskey. Mix until sugar dissolves. Top with cream.