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Try our no-churn Irish coffee ice cream with hazelnut and chocolate biscuits, then check out our our Baileys ice cream, spiced coffee kulfi, iced coffee, iced latte and iced caramel coffee. For another coffee-flavoured dessert, try our espresso martini cake pops.

Cook, preserver, baker and author Cherie Denham says: "To truly understand Irish food you need to cook in simplicity, shaped by the land and sea, and passed down through generations. It’s not about fancy techniques or elaborate dishes, it’s about honest, comforting, down-to-earth food made with care and shared with others.

"I was brought up on a farm, nestled in County Tyrone in rural N Ireland. My Mummy, Aunties and Grannies cooked with what they had to hand: potatoes pulled from the garden, wild berries gathered from the hedgerows, soda bread fresh from the oven and homemade butter. The press was stocked with homemade jellies and jams made from crab apples and rosehips, damsons, blackberries and strawberries.

"The flavours are clean and comforting, and the ingredients aren’t trendy, they’re traditional. Creamy dairy from grass-fed cows, tender lamb, wild Atlantic seafood and earthy root veg. I often went to the local market with mummy on a Wednesday after school if we ran out of vegetables. She’d buy a huge sack of potatoes, a bag of carrots and a few swedes or turnips, as they were called, still all with mud on them. Apples and rhubarb were very popular, and used predominantly to make tarts. Bramley apples have a Protected Geographical Indication in County Armagh, which is affectionately known as The Orchard County.

"To cook here is to respect the seasons and surroundings – it’s warming the teapot before pouring the first cup, baking something sweet and welcoming for when guests are due, and always sending them home with a loaf of fresh bread, jar of jam or tin of biscuits. It’s food that brings people together, whether it’s a Sunday dinner, bowl of stew at the kitchen table or cup of tea and soda bread in your hand. Eating and drinking in Ireland is welcoming, unpretentious and full of warmth – whether it’s a pint of Guinness in the local pub or oysters by the sea, the experience is always the same, rooted in place, people and tradition."

Recipes extracted from The Irish Kitchen by Cherie Denham (£30, Montgomery Press). Photographs: Andrew Montgomery. Recipes are sent by the publisher and not retested by us.


No-churn Irish coffee ice cream with hazelnut and chocolate biscuits recipe

  • 600ml double cream
  • 397g tin of condensed milk
  • 5 tbsp instant espresso powder
  • 3 tbsp Baileys Irish Cream
  • 3 tbsp Irish whiskey

BISCUITS

  • 55g blanched hazelnuts
  • 110g unsalted butter
    softened
  • 55g soft light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 170g plain flour
    plus extra for dusting
  • pinch of sea salt flakes
  • 55g milk chocolate
    chopped into small pieces
  • demerara sugar
    for sprinkling

Nutrition: per serving

  • kcal677
  • fat50g
  • saturates29g
  • carbs45g
  • sugars31g
  • fibre1g
  • protein7g
  • salt0.2g
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Method

  • step 1

    For the ice cream, combine the cream, condensed milk, espresso powder, Baileys and whiskey in a bowl, and whisk together until soft and pillowy. Spoon into an airtight container and freeze overnight.

  • step 2

    To make the biscuits, heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line three baking sheets with baking paper. Put the hazelnuts on one baking sheet and toast in the oven for 5-6 mins. Remove from the oven and cool. Reduce the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

  • step 3

    Beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl using an electric whisk until pale and creamy.

  • step 4

    Finely chop the hazelnuts using a food processor or by hand. Sift the flour and salt into the butter mixture, then add the chocolate and hazelnuts, and mix using an electric whisk until well combined and forming a dough. Use your hands to bring it together.

  • step 5

    Roll out the dough on a lightly floured worksurface and stamp out circles using a 5cm cutter. Put on the remaining lined baking sheets, then chill for 30 mins to firm up. Once chilled, remove from the fridge and bake in the oven for 10-12 mins.

  • step 6

    Remove from the oven, sprinkle with demerara sugar and leave to cool on the baking sheets for 10 mins before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve the ice cream with the biscuits.

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