JR Ryall Transcript

JR Ryall Transcript

Jessie Sheehan:

Hi peeps, you're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy, Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes. 

Today's guest is JR Ryall, the head pastry chef at Ballymaloe House, a luxury property in Cork County, Ireland. While it's a separate entity from the famed Ballymaloe Cookery School, it is right next door and owned by the same family. JR is also the author of the 2022 cookbook, “Ballymaloe Desserts.” He started working at Ballymaloe when he was a teenager and was entrusted with the dessert menu at just 21 years old. He's also established at other prestigious places like the River Cafe in London and Chez Panisse in Berkeley. His baking focuses on sourcing local, high quality ingredients, and his creations are rooted in traditional Irish flavors with contemporary techniques and global influences. JR is hands down one of the most delightful conversationalists. We had such a fun time chatting about his life at Ballymaloe, including the fateful first time he visited when he was only four years old, the bread baking class he took there when he was a young teenager, and the incredible Ballymaloe vintage dessert trolley or cart that he fills with a daily array of seasonally inspired treats and baked goods for lunch and dinner at the house. He also walks me through his recipe for chocolate eclairs from his book. And it was such a treat to learn his tips for crispy choux pastry, how he lightens his pastry cream, and how to make a chocolate glaze that is shiny, not too sweet, and almost a little chewy. If you know, you know. You don't want to miss our chat, so stay tuned. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com. 

Today's episode is sponsored by Ghirardelli Professional Products. When it comes to your craft, only the best will do. That's why professional recipe developers, like myself, trust products from Ghirardelli, America's oldest, continuously operating chocolate manufacturer. The Ghirardelli difference starts at the source. They select the finest cocoa beans from specific regions and they roast only the heart of the bean for a richer and more consistent flavor. Their chocolate is meticulously refined to ensure a creamy texture, and then it goes through hours of conching to reduce moisture and drive off bitter notes. All of this results in a velvety, smooth, flavorful chocolate like no other. I love using Ghirardelli products, like the coating wafers, which make dipping and coating super easy-peasy, whether you're covering strawberries or making petits fours. And their sweet ground powders are perfect for baking as well as beverages. So all you professional and at-home, baristas can whip up specialty coffees like marvelous mochas and other treats. And then when it comes to chocolate chips, they have eight varieties from semi-sweet to milk, to bittersweet. And for you pastry chefs, they have couverture options and offer their products in convenient five-pound bags. So whatever you need, they have an option for you. To learn more about Ghirardelli professional products and request samples, visit ghirardelli.com/professional. You can also find their products at US Chef Store, Restaurant Depot, Webstaurant, and even Amazon, or request them via your food service distributor. Now is the perfect time to upgrade your bakes with premium ingredients. I have a special treat for those of you who will be at Jubilee in New York City on Saturday, April 12th. Ghirardelli will be there and you'll get to try their delicious products for yourself. Meet some of your favorite bakers and dessert folks, and enter to win a fantastic sweep stakes. I'll be a Jubilee all day and I can't wait to see you there. 

Cherry Bombe's next issue is all about love, and I think you're going to love the cover. It features Ilona, Olivia, and Adrianna Marr, the sister trio that has won everyone's hearts for their positive message of confidence and self-love. The issue is full of joyful stories and recipes. To snag a copy head to cherrybombe.com, or click the link in our show notes, or visit your favorite bookstore or culinary shop to pick up an issue.

 Let's chat with today's guest. JR, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie, and to talk eclairs with you and so much more.

JR Ryall:

Yes, thank you, Jessie. I'm delighted to be here. It's always a treat to get to New York and I've been a follower of yours and Cherry Bombe for the longest time and huge fan. So thank you very much for the invitation.

Jessie Sheehan:

I want to begin with one of my favorite JR stories that you've told, which is the story of your Aunt Evelyn who worked at Ballymaloe. And brought you there to tour it to see where she worked when you were only four years old. So tell us what transpired when JR was four years old.

JR Ryall:

So to set the scene, I was born in the late '80s in Ireland, in County Cork, and at that time one of Ireland's chefs, Darina Allen, had a television show called “Simply Delicious,” and it was my favorite thing to watch. So instead of cartoons, my mother would put on Darina's show and I'd watch her make a fruitcake or a sorbet or a studded leg of lamb with garlic. I thought this was amazing. When I was four, I was into the show so much. My mother mentioned it to Evelyn, my aunt, who worked at the cookery school that Darina Allen ran. This is a cookery school on her own 100 acre organic farm in East County Cork. So Evelyn said, “Come ahead.” So, I spent an afternoon going around the gardens, the farm through the cookery school buildings, the kitchens where the students cook, and then at the end of the tour, Evelyn introduced me to Darina.

This was the first time I was starstruck, and very kindly Darina gifted me a copy of her cookbook. The book was called “Simply Delicious.” It was her first cookery book, a soft cover with a gray border and a photo of herself on it. And she put a note inside the cover saying, "For JR who will be a great chef when he grows up, love Darina Allen, March, 1992." So this is 33 years ago, but it really sowed a seed and ever since that day I found Darina her approach, her message, the whole Ballymaloe thing, very aspirational. So that really encouraged me to want to be a cook.

Jessie Sheehan:

I've read that you said your mom was a fine baker, nothing against your mom, good baker, but she was no Aunt Evelyn. She wasn't at that sort of stage or at that sort of enthusiasm for it. Is that fair to say?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, well, my mother was a very good home cook, and we ate at home all the time. We would eat in a restaurant just a couple of times a year. Though I longed for it, I dreamt of the food that I could imagine was in restaurants all to come down the line. But no, my mother cooked very traditional, what you'd call farm food. Back in the day when even our desserts, as much as they were for pleasure, they were also for sustenance because on a farm you work outside. My mother was outside working when my father was home, he'd be working on the farm. He had a job away as well. And then we'd have people who'd give a hand and you come in for a meal and you'd need the calories. So it was back in the day where you'd have a sponge cake, but actually it was as important a part of the meal as everything else. So my mother cooked these lovely traditional meals that were very healthy. There was no extravagance to it, very pragmatic cookery.

Jessie Sheehan:

I hate that word, foodie, but it wasn't like a foodie family where everyone's talking about food all the time and thinking about it, because it's a very you need the food in order to do the job, which is where the focus is.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I think we took for granted how good the food was without ever speaking about it. A lot of the time we're very lucky. We had a few chickens. The eggs are fresh, the butter you buy in Ireland is so wonderful. So there's always a pound of Kerrygold on the table, and now when you realize what's in other parts of the world, you realize how good we had it. The quality of the flour was great, access to fresh vegetables. So we ate very simply, but very well. And we weren't sick that often as children, but there weren't too many packets coming in the door either. So almost the exotic I was dreaming of. But yeah, we didn't really get it. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

So at around 13 years old, I think it was maybe even your 13th birthday, or maybe it was your 14th birthday, your mom bought you a two and a half day Ballymaloe bread class. You were the only young person in the group. I think it was probably full of grown-ups. You stayed with Aunt Evelyn, of course. And it was after that course that Darina invited you to work at Ballymaloe. The rest is history, but tell us about that class and how brave you were to go and be with all those grown-ups.

JR Ryall:

So this was a dream come true because the years leading up to this, I would make anything my mother would allow me to. And yesterday somebody asked me how did I decide to be a pastry chef? And then I said to them, "Actually, it was sort of chosen for me. When you're very young and you want to cook, it's seldom someone will hand you a chicken to roast or ask you to prepare a tagine." But they'll say, "Make cakes and cookies.” So I've been practicing the genre of baking for years at home just based on the recipes I could get from a magazine or from my first baking book, that sort of thing. So when mum suggested I could do this course at Ballymaloe, I was like, "Wow, this is the door I want to walk through." And having seen Ballymaloe and had that seed, so and so young, getting there was really the most excited I'd been about anything at that time.

So I did the two and a half day course. They made an exception. It wasn't a kid's course. So everyone else was over 18, but Evelyn kindly explained this, because "JR is so into this, can we..." And she actually did the course with me. They said, "Look, yeah, we think this will work better." And at the end of the two and a half days, my eyes were widened. I saw things that I had never imagined. Just watching how the farm filtered into the cookery school, there was magic in the air and it's a feeling I've never forgotten.

And during that time, I met a few people who'd go on to become very important mentors for me. So it was more than just the recipes In the course. I met Myrtle Allen, she was the founder of Ballymaloe. She'd be 101 this year if she was still alive. I met Rory O'Connell, the head chef of Ballymaloe House at the time, who teaches at the cookery school, Hazel Allen. And little did I know the influence these two and a half days were going to have on the next 20 years.

Jessie Sheehan:

Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Peeps, have you heard about Cherry Bombe’s Jubilee? It's our annual conference for women in food, drink, and hospitality, and it's happening Saturday, April 12th in New York City. I always love being at Jubilee and connecting with other bakers, pastry chefs, and cookbook authors. If you'd like to join us, you can get tickets at cherrybombe.com. If you're an official Bombesquad member, check your inbox for special member pricing. I hope to see you there. 

Now back to our guest. Can you describe your baking style for us? Ballymaloe influences you, and you influence it, but what would you say your style is?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, my style is very simple. It's seasonally led. And the approach is to never overlook what's around you. So when I'm in Ballymaloe, I look at what's there. In midsummer, first there'll be gooseberries, strawberries, if we're lucky, the first raspberries. And then those things are really what you have to work with. That's the palette. And then the cooking is the painting the picture bit. So usually we'll pair things gently in a way that each flavor generally sits on its own. So raspberries might go into a raspberry almond tart. Two flavors that work well together, nothing else is needed. Or strawberries might literally be tossed for sugar and lemon juice as a dessert to pair with ice cream. And all of these things go onto a dessert trolley. And so the style is very much of a country house. It's very simple home cooking, elevated, but really it's all about the produce.

Jessie Sheehan:

Tell us a little bit more about Ballymaloe for those that might not know. You said it in County Cork Ireland, people have called it the birthplace of the modern Irish cuisine.

JR Ryall:

Ballymaloe, the name comes from the Irish language and it translates to Land of the Sweet Honey. So that in itself is I suppose, quite fitting in many ways. Ballymaloe is a farm, and in the middle of the farm there's an old house, the oldest part dating back 500 years. The newest part, the paint is still drying. And in the house there's a restaurant and there's bedrooms. We call it a small hotel in Ireland. By American standards, you might think of it as an inn. So this is somewhere you can come and stay, have a long, leisurely breakfast. And dinner is the specialty of the day where people will come and have a long dinner with friends or family. And it's a real occasion to celebrate. And in the restaurant the menus are based on the produce that's available on the farm, the locality, and we prepare a new menu for every day.

So really what we think of as farm to table. And it opened in 1964, so predates most of the properties internationally that we think of who have a similar approach. For anyone listening in the U.S. is Chez Panisse was found in the early '70s. So you need to put it in context is predates what was going on here. So the idea that an Irish farmer's wife, Myrtle Allen at age 40 with five children, would open a small restaurant in her home. This was really eccentric stuff at the time, but it worked. So that's what Ballymaloe was in the beginning. And then people would come from far and white to eat this very simple food in a setting where it felt like it belonged. And then people wanted to learn how to make it. So Darina Allen, Myrtle's daughter-in-law, then established the Ballymaloe Cookery School on a nearby farm that her and her husband had.

The farms are just about two miles from one another. And on the cookery school farm, which started in 1983, they began just with one classroom. And now over the last 40 years, the school has grown to be an international institute of forgotten skills. You can learn how to milk a cow and sow a seed and make compost. You can learn how to glaze a gateau pithivier, fillet a fish, and catch the fish. Everything from cheese making to recipe writing. The three-month cookery course that's run at Ballymaloe covers all of that. So it's become a bit of a destination. Lots of people come from the U.S. And on any one of these courses, there's 67 students, there could be 15 or more nationalities. So the whole Ballymaloe world has gone from being something that was so hyper local to grasping curiosity of people around the world.

And then there's other little side businesses too. We feed into farmer's markets. There's a farm shop where locals can come and get the produce from the glass house, all organic of course. And lots of other things. We love to jump into a project. And actually one of the things we're doing this year, if anyone fancies a holiday, come to Ireland in May, we're going to have the Ballymaloe Festival of Food. And we invite our cook friends from all around the world, they're going to come. And it's really great fun. So we do a lot of things.

Jessie Sheehan:

So is the old house where I read that everyone called Myrtle Mrs. Allen?

JR Ryall:

Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes. Where Mrs. Allen started, is that where the more fancy restaurant is now?

JR Ryall:

Yes. Yeah. So that was her golden egg. So Ballymaloe House was Myrtle's house in the middle of the farm that she and her husband were running. And when she wanted to open a restaurant in those days, people opened restaurants in cities. But Ivan, her husband said, “Myrtle, I'd love you to open a restaurant, but we'll have to do it here in the house.” So the idea, this whole thing, now we see the story, people commercialize these houses, it's a very valid way of holding onto them, Making a living, wasn't really the done thing at the time. The restaurant that Myrtle started is in Ballymaloe House itself in this wonderful ancient property.

Jessie Sheehan:

Can you tell people about the vintage dessert trolley?

JR Ryall:

Yes. So I suppose what we're used to these days in restaurants is often comes to the end of the meal. The dessert menu goes down and people think, "Oh, will, we share a slice of cake between the six of us." It's a different story in Ballymaloe. Since the day the restaurant opened, we have a dessert trolley, or some people might call it a dessert cart, and it'll go from table to table in the restaurant. And if we have 100 guests for dinner, we serve 100 desserts. Everybody gets their own plate. And this isn't a way of trying to stuff people or overfeed them. They can have as little or as much as they like. And every night there's always five desserts in the trolley that change and one that's always there. The one that's always there is called carrageen moss pudding. Very special, iconic Ballymaloe dessert.

It's a seaweed set milk. And if anyone's really interested, you'll find a lovely story on that in the book about the other desserts. There's always something frozen. It could be an ice cream, sorbet, a bomb, think all the things in that category, always something like a pastry or a cake. So it could be something as simple as an open apple tartlet, a chocolate choux bun or some sort of gateau. Then there's always a meringue dessert. We use lots of egg yolks in our desserts. Egg white is a surplus and many people might decide to discard them, but we always make meringue so they could be baked off center, layered in a cake, made into a gateau marjolaine, all these different things. Always something fruity. Could be a compote, fresh fruit, little tower of strawberries or cherries, whatever's coming off the garden. And then always something moosey. So they're the five categories. We move the desserts around every day.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh my gosh.

JR Ryall:

I love that. And you can try them all. And-

Jessie Sheehan:

I was going to ask, is it like a set menu? So dessert is part of the menu.

JR Ryall:

It's included. So by coming in the door, dessert is part of the package.

Jessie Sheehan:

JR, I'm literally coming in the door like tomorrow. That is my idea of heaven. Because I always want dessert. I always want to try everything, hate sharing with people, but I would get my own plate of everything.

JR Ryall:

Yes. And part of the joy of it is if you dine with us a few nights in a row, the desserts change every night. So though it's the same trolley, everything that's on it is different. So there's always something for everyone. And I just love when people try a little bit of everything. To talk about menu planning for a second, we plan the desserts. So the five items, they complement each other. So that if you have them all and you have a little bit of each on your plate, they sit so well side by side. And when you eat them, they're well together. Or even if you just had two of the things, they're wonderful. So soon we'll be poaching rhubarb. It's going to pair so nicely with praline ice cream. I'll make sure they're on the same night. You get the idea.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes. And I love the idea. Tell us about this carrageen moss dessert, because I read about it everywhere and I love the story in the book. So just tell the listeners about it.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. The name carrageen, that word means little rock. Carraig is the Irish word for rock. If you put -een on the end, it means little. So first, a lovely name. This is the seaweed that grows in the little rocks along the shore of Ireland. You'll find it down the west coast of Europe, in fact. But the Irish are using it for so long, but the Irish name has stuck internationally. So we collect the seaweed from just below the tide line. When the tide is out, usually during spring tides and junior July, that's the optimum. And it grows in the little rock pools. The seaweed itself, it's about the size of a closed fist. So we carefully remove pieces of the seaweed from the rock, usually lay it out on neatly cut grass or on a clifftop. The sun dries it. And after the first rainfall, it washes the seaweed, and that's a natural way of bleaching and preserving the seaweed.

So we take it inside and it actually keeps for years. So you can have a bag of this hidden in the pantry and pull it out whenever you need it. To make the dessert we soak the seaweed in water, simmer it in milk, and when the milk cools, it'll set. Now the more seaweed you use, the firmer the set, and we sweeten it very lightly and add a drop of vanilla. It's a wonderful delicate dessert. It is the scent of the sea. We love to serve it with any fruit compotes that are in season, or my favorite way to have it is to make an Irish coffee sauce. So think caramel, which you put a good splash of Jameson or whatever Irish whiskey you like, and some strong coffee into it. And you get this whole Irish coffee vibe. Oh my God, it's so good.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yum. Oh my gosh. So tell us about your incredible Ballymaloe cookbook.

JR Ryall:

People were suggesting to me for a while that maybe a book could be a good idea, and I couldn't get my head around what this book might look like. And for anyone who works professionally in kitchens, you spend a lot of your time in the kitchen. So even the idea of when would I write the book and what is this book? So it sat on the back burner for a while. But Hazel Allen, the general manager of Ballymaloe House 10 years before I came to write the book, asked me would I do something. Her original idea was maybe 10 recipes that we could staple together. And we'd leave them on a table in the front hall of Ballymaloe house. So the guests, the residents who had stayed with us and they're checking out, they might pick it up as a souvenir. And I think I was very busy that weekend.

I never got around to it. Anyway, another year passed, and then she said maybe that little pamphlet we were thinking of, maybe it could be a little booklet of some sort. Still didn't do anything. Couldn't get my head around it. Then the next year I had helped with a book project in Ballymaloe and Hazel said, "Well, maybe it could just be a little book." So you get the idea. The ambition was growing and the encouragement was there, but I didn't feel I was an author and I wasn't sure what the narrative was.

Anyway, by that point, I had begun to imagine what the book could be like, and Mrs. Allen had passed away at this point, and I, in retrospect, could realize the great experience I had with her. And I wanted to thank her. And she had taught me to appreciate this repertoire of recipes and style of cooking, that it's very easy to overlook. Simple old-fashioned things that make people and the family feel loved. And so I could suddenly realize there was something in a book in the content that I had been gathering. So I met a literary agent. We crafted a book proposal and handed it out. And yeah, I got an offer. So the next thing I was writing a book.

Jessie Sheehan:

I also love. It seems so full circle to me, in light of Darina giving you that copy of her book when you were just four years old, and then many years later you are producing a book for the place that she loves and has-

JR Ryall:

Oh it's still a pinch me moment for me. I never imagined I'd be writing a book that would become part of the Ballymaloe body of work. So the book is called “Ballymaloe Desserts.” For anyone who hasn't seen it-

Jessie Sheehan:

I've heard it described as a guidebook for how one gets through the seasons or how you get through the seasons at Ballymaloe.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, it's essentially, I think of it as the collection of essential recipes we use every year. There's other things we do as well. Many of the recipes, I call them blueprints. So you could take the fruit tart, for example. It's like a double crusted pie with two different pastries. So a really fun thing, but you can make 10 different tarts in that. It depends what you have on hand. Or there's ice creams that you make a base and suddenly you can go in eight different directions. And that's how we cook in Ballymaloe. And we've come up with base recipes that we know work really well with the cream and the eggs and the butter and everything that we have.

And then after that, it's a matter of what direction are we moving in. So the book is, it's written with that in mind, and these are the recipes we really use. So these aren't recipes that were concocted for a book. These are recipes that are tried and tested. They actually really work. And some of them have been in use for over half a century in Ballymaloe. And it's very much a shared thing of recipes I'd inherited, recipes that evolved with me, but also things that have been perfected before my times. So the book's the celebration of the department and the place where I work. And it's a thank you letter to Mrs. Allen for lighting the spark.

Jessie Sheehan:

How did you decide how to come up with a table of contents, the way that you divide the book up? Was that your idea? Was that something that came from the publisher?

JR Ryall:

It came very naturally, actually. I use the categories that we use in the pastry kitchen in Ballymaloe. I broke things down into cakes, pastries, meringues, ices. And then we put those chapters in order of the more basic like fruit compotes and salads, going into the more advanced things. So towards the end of the book, you can do a deep dive into pastries, like the eclairs, but using different types of pastries in different dishes. And then onto cakes and gateaus and things that will be a little bit more of a project. So in the book, there's some wonderfully simple things, puddings that you can bake in a single dish perfect for the family. And then there's Saturday afternoon projects where you can really deep dive into the world of pastry. So I hope if anyone's looking for a special gift or a treat for themselves, the book is available everywhere books are sold.

Jessie Sheehan:

Well, what's wonderful about it too is it means that anyone can buy it. Somebody who's a professional baker can buy this book and bake from it, but you could also be a novice and just learn as you go.

JR Ryall:

Yes, totally. Yeah. And one of the details of the book that I'm very proud of just to mention is I cooked and styled all of the pictures myself. So using the recipes in the book, so there was no outsource studio or anything. So if you do follow the recipes and you look at the images, you can land on that result. I hope anyone who gives some of the recipes a go has a lot of fun with them.

Jessie Sheehan:

Well, also there's the beautiful photography. I met your photographer when you-

JR Ryall:

Oh, Cliodhna.

Jessie Sheehan:

When you and I met for the first time,

JR Ryall:

I have to mention Cliodhna Prendergast. A dear friend of mine in Ireland and one of the country's most talented photographers for food and interiors and portraiture. But to get to work with a friend like that on a project like this, it was very intimate. It was the two of us. I cooked and styled, she photographed and we broke the photography for the book into seven different photo shoots, and we did it over a four-month period because we needed the produce to be on hand. We couldn't do a strawberry dish without the best strawberries in it. So each thing, as we did it and cooked it and shot it, we tried to make sure it really could be the best version of itself with the very best produce. And hopefully some of that shines through. People might notice it.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah, it's such a beautiful book. And then I was just curious, when we think about the recipes themselves, JR are some of them, you've been working at Ballymaloe for so long now. But some of them are JR recipes that you brought with you, and some of them are Myrtle's recipe. What's the mix?

JR Ryall:

So many of the dishes that I inherited with my role and what I'm doing and things that Mrs. Allen taught me to do, because we cook together every day in the kitchen. Mrs. Allen would come into the pastry kitchen. I got to know her in her late seventies. And then she was 94 when she passed away. So we had a good decade where she'd come in each day and we cook these old recipes. And she was extraordinary on flavor. She knew how to make things sing. She knew how to use up things that other people would've discarded, but turn it into something that was just as important as premium ingredient. I learned so much of that from her. And then I was always reasonably good at aesthetic. So together as a team, between her teaching me how to make things taste delicious, and then sometimes I'd say, "Well, maybe I wonder, could we style it this way today?"

And so a lot of the recipes between the two of us evolved over that decade. And I loved being able to put a contemporary lens on things that could easily be overlooked, but things that we really love, the desserts that make us most happy, really. So in a way, the point of the book was to shine a light on things that you mightn't always remember are there. So it's not my version of something today where I'm just putting tahini in everything. Love tahini. You know what I mean?

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes.

JR Ryall:

Sometimes presenting something in its simplest form, but reminding someone that that's really special. So that was really the narrative thread through the book, but that's something I learned from Mrs. Allen.

Jessie Sheehan:

I love that. I want to talk about chocolate eclairs now. So your eclairs at Ballymaloe are a teeny bit different maybe than traditional because of the creme légere. I would love you to tell us what creme légere is. And also why is that the right cream for your eclair versus just a straight-up pastry cream?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, so with the eclair, we bake the choux pastry into the traditional shape. And sometimes we do fill them with just Chantilly cream or creme Chantilly, a sweet vanilla cream. But over the years from playing around, I love to fill them with creme légere. And what creme légere is you make a pastry cream. It's a very stiff custard, thickened with, it can be cornstarch or flour. You can sub them in or out in the recipe, and you fold whipped cream into it. So you end up enriching the cream with the flavor of the pastry cream.

You end up lightening the pastry cream with the air that's in the whipped cream, and you end up with this really magical territory. And when you've got that lovely custardy cream inside the crisp pastry, it compliments the chocolate glaze really well, I think in America does that cake, Boston cream pie where it hits on that chocolate custardy note. So you're tiptoeing into that sort of flavor thing. It's really good. But I've also felt a Clara's with sweet vanilla cream, also delicious. Yeah, no, if you want to push the boat out, definitely creme légere is the way to go.

Jessie Sheehan:

Is Chantilly cream, how is that different than whipped cream?

JR Ryall:

So in Ireland, often when we're serving whipped cream to start off, we have really wonderful quality cream and it's very flavorful. And we'll just whip cream plain and serve that plain unsweetened unflavored cream. With many of our desserts. In Ballymaloe, we love to do that. It'll go on the carrageen moss pudding. It'll go beside the apple pie, it'll go with the fruit comps, everything. If you add vanilla and sugar to that whipped cream, it then becomes Chantilly cream. And you can serve that with desserts too. But in Ireland at home, we generally prefer to serve a plain cream as an accompaniment. But if it's going to be used as a layer, like in a gateau or a cake, then we add the vanilla and sugar.

Jessie Sheehan:

I know that you like a slightly less sweet, shiny chocolate glaze on your eclairs. And yours were actually made with egg yolks. So I had a couple of questions. I think you had written that typically it would be like a fondant frosting on?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, there's many different frostings you'll find around often in the shops in Paris, it'll be fondant based. There's a lot of sugar going in there and powdered sugar and things to get texture. And some people put glucose and trimoline, which is a genre of ingredients I don't really use because I'm an old-fashioned girl when I'm cooking. So this particular glaze I love because you don't add any extra sugar, but what's in the chocolate. So I pick a chocolate that's between 60 and 70% cocoa solid. So we call it bittersweet. It's not too dark, it's not too sweet.

You melt the chocolate with some butter and water, and that becomes almost like a ganache in the bowl. And then crack in two large eggs and beat it. And lo and behold, it becomes this wonderful glossy chocolate glaze. And when it cools, it becomes almost a little bit chewy and fudgy. So you need great eggs for this of course. While it's warm, it's a coating consistency, so you can dip the eclair in, let the little extra drip come off, invert it the right around, so the chocolate glaze is facing up. And yeah, it's great.

Jessie Sheehan:

Is there a name for a chocolate glaze with an egg yolk in it?

JR Ryall:

I actually don't know what the name for it is, but if anybody knows, let us know.

Jessie Sheehan:

Please tell us. Because I'm obsessed with it now. Because I love that kind of chewy chocolate ganache can be not finicky, but I love the idea of the eggs bringing in this unctuousness.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, you get this interesting slight chew to it when it sets, yeah. And the joy then is that if you want to second eclair, you can have it because they're not too sweet. Maybe another note on the choux pastry is that I don't put any sugar in the choux pastry. So the choux pastry recipe I use, it can be sweet or savory, but there is salted butter in it. That's very important. That pinch of salt heightens the flavor of everything. So I'd use the likes of Kerrygold, I think that's available here. It's great. It brings a great flavor to the pastry, but not having sugar in choux pastry when you bake it, and this is something I've learned through experimenting, gives you a crisper pastry. A lot of choux pastry recipes have some sugar in it. They'll color faster in the oven, sugar translates to color, but then when you cool the pastry, it's not as completely crisp. If you want choux pastry, that's absolutely crisp, leave the sugar out and you'll have a crisper shell.

Jessie Sheehan:

All right, so first things first in the recipe, we would make the creme légere because we needed to come to room temp anyway. So would that be our first component that we would make?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, so I'd make the pastry cream first. That can sit in the fridge. And whether the whipped cream is folded in earlier on or closer to filling time, but get the pastry cream made and cooled. So that's done.

Jessie Sheehan:

So first we'll make our pastry cream. We're going to place milk, which I assume is always whole milk.

JR Ryall:

In the pastry cream. Oh, yes.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yep. Yep. So we're going to place some whole milk.

JR Ryall:

Whole milk.

Jessie Sheehan:

And a vanilla pod if we're using. You can also use extract, but we're hoping you're going to use a pod.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. Of course if you can get it.

Jessie Sheehan:

And is there a brand of pods? Where do you get your pods from?

JR Ryall:

My vanilla dealer. There's a guy called Patrick in London actually, and he works at a company called Eurovanille. And I have seen it here in the U.S. It's an organic vanilla. I've seen it in Manhattan, I've seen it in SOS. That great store does all those lovely ingredients. But you'll see it around. But yeah, so generally a minimum it's good to go organic with vanilla.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to combine whole milk, a vanilla pod, and we're going to put those into a heavy pan. What should we picture? Is it like a copper pod? Is it just-

JR Ryall:

I generally use a stainless steel pan for this because if the milk does catch to the base of the pan, very easy to clean it out. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay. Yep. And we're going to place this on medium heat and bring to just below boiling point. So almost like a simmer.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. So you might see a few bubbles coming around the edge of the pan. You don't want the milk to expand and flow over. That's a problem.

Jessie Sheehan:

That's never fun.

JR Ryall:

And yeah, it should be just at that scalding just blow boiling point.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we'll remove the pan from the heat and we'll allow the vanilla pod to infuse the milk for about five minutes. Then we'll place egg yolks in a separate bowl with some castor sugar. When you say castor, we call it superfine sugar.

JR Ryall:

Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:

So if we wanted to make this at home, we either buy superfine sugar or grind up our granulated sugar in a blender or something?

JR Ryall:

Yeah. So we call it castor sugar in Ireland and the British Isles, but exactly superfine sugar here, the same that you'd use in making a cake. The advantage of it being a finer grain sugar is that it'll dissolve much quicker into the liquid. So you're really setting yourself up for success. And I suppose the good thing about sugar of all ingredients, it's never going to go off. So probably worth having a bag in the press if you're going to do some of these things.

Jessie Sheehan:

And then we're going to mix the egg yolks and the castor sugar together until the mixture lightens and maybe gets a little fluffy, lightens in texture, right?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:

Is there a particular kind of whisk you like to use? A particular type?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I like to use a balloon whisk, one that is an appropriate size for the job because sometimes you're scaling a recipe up, so you've got to scale the equipment too. Bigger bowl, but bigger whisk. So yeah, something that's comfortable. Yeah, a balloon whisk. I love for that.

Jessie Sheehan:

And now we're going to add flour, which is all-purpose flour, or we could add cornstarch if we want it to be gluten-free.

JR Ryall:

Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:

And we do this because that will preclude the curdling, to have a little bit of the flour.

JR Ryall:

Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:

When the mixture's boiled. And we'll also thicken our mixture, so we have a little bit of oomph.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, it thickens. It stabilizes, it adds body. Yeah. So the small amount of flour plays a very important role.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect. Then a pinch of salt. Do you guys like to use kosher salt? Do you use fine sea salt?

JR Ryall:

We generally use fine sea salt for everything. And in this case, generally when you have anything with dairy or starches, a little salt heightens the flavor. If you've ever had bread without salt, it's pretty bland. In this case, the little bit of salt, it helps the milk to taste more milky.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we'll whisk that all together thoroughly. If we've used our vanilla pod, we will remove it from the milk and scrape the tiny seeds into the milk. Or if we're using extract, we would add that to our milk now.

JR Ryall:

Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:

And then we're going to pour that warm infused vanilla milk into our egg mixture. You say it's very important to do it gradually?

JR Ryall:

Yep. Well, it's a nicer process when you do it gradually because the egg mixture is a little bit mousy and thick and the milk is thin and watery, so it's nice to introduce the two slowly. Also, you're putting something very hot into something with eggs. You'd want to remove all risk that you might have any little strands of egg that might just curdle. You can sieve it out later. There's always ways of saving something when it doesn't go exactly to plan. But yeah, for success it's better to bit by bit.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to whisk thoroughly until it's all combined. And then we're going to put all of this into a different pan from the one we've been using. Is it a different stainless steel pot essentially?

JR Ryall:

Sometimes. Usually I'll rinse out the pot I have. I suppose the objective there is just to make sure that there's no residue on the pan because that might cause sticking later. And that could be a little bit tricky. Yeah, nice to have a nice clean pan going back in.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect. So we can clean the one we used. We can grab a different one, and then we'll place on medium heat and we'll stir continuously, or whisk continuously. And then you say to scrape across the bottom and into the corners of the pan just to prevent the custard from sticking as it cooks. And you suggest a flat-bottomed wooden spoon to help you really feel. Tell me about using that tool and what am I picturing? What's a flat-bottomed spoon?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, so it has the end of the wooden spoon, but the spoon part of it is flat instead of curved meaning when you press it against the base of the pan and you move it around, it has complete contact with it. And as it moves, it'll stop the milk from sticking in any one place. And then if you're suspicious that one side of the pot mightn't be getting enough attention because you're stirring from the right side or the left, the corner of the spoon, you can get it in there really quick.

Jessie Sheehan:

So is it almost angled? Is it almost bent at the bottom where the spoon part is?

JR Ryall:

It can be. Sometimes they're slightly angled, sometimes you get the right angles, but they'll all work well once you keep that flat side flush with the base of the pan.

Jessie Sheehan:

The custard will gradually thicken as it approaches its boiling point. About how long? I know it depends on what volume you're doing.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, it depends on the heat source and a few things, but that part usually takes about five minutes because the milk was hot going into the eggs, the temperature drops. And then you put it back onto the heat and you're stirring it. So you're releasing a bit of heat by stirring it a lot. So the temperature climbs slowly. The next thing, it'll start to bubble on the base of the pan.

Jessie Sheehan:

When the custard starts to boil, we're going to reduce the heat slightly and maintain a simmer for about two minutes. And this is very important because it's right now that the flour in the custard is actually cooking out and we're going to get our change texture slightly. It'll become silkier and shinier. And we don't want it to taste flour-ey. You can't just assume, "Oh, it boiled. I'm done." You have to boil it or keep it simmering for about two minutes to kill that flour flavor.

JR Ryall:

And if you don't have a flat bottom wooden spoon, you can use a whisk at this point as well. It just depends on if the whisk will get into the corner of the pot. That's really the fear. But when it starts to boil, if it hasn't stuck at that point, it's actually much less likely to catch or stick after that. And cooking it for the two minutes, interestingly, by the time you get to the second minute, it goes from being thick and the texture visibly changes just a tiny bit. It goes slightly glossier, it moves in a slightly different way. So if you make it a few times, you'll twig that moment. And that's really what you're looking for. It takes about two minutes.

Jessie Sheehan:

Love. So now we're going to remove the pan from the heat, past the thick custard, through a sieve.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. Always a good idea.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah. You do that even if you don't think-

JR Ryall:

I do, because sometimes even from the vanilla pod being in the milk, there might just be like a strand of vanilla pod. You know what it is. But your friend or the guest you're serving an eclair to might think there's like, "Why is there a fiber?" And so it's great to remove any of that. Just you've got super silky, super clean extract.

Jessie Sheehan:

And is there a type of sieve, should we picture the pointy cone-shaped one?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, you could use either for this actually. Yeah, just a nice fine sieve.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay.

JR Ryall:

Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

And we'll sieve into the bowl. Do you like a glass bowl? Do you like a ceramic bowl? What is JR using?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, once it's heatproof, because this mixture is boiling.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay.

JR Ryall:

So I wouldn't pick my finest pottery for this. A metal or glass bowl is just perfect.

Jessie Sheehan:

And then we'll press a piece of parchment paper against the surface of the custard to prevent a skin. I usually see it written as a piece of plastic wrap.

JR Ryall:

And most people do that. I just try to cut down on the plastic.

Jessie Sheehan:

I love that.

JR Ryall:

We're just in a world now where we have to cut out plastic.

Jessie Sheehan:

I know, but that's so smart.

JR Ryall:

And in some ways it's so difficult. But yeah, every little bit. Or I've even actually used a butter wrapper. The butter wrappers have that nonstick coating on the inside. You can press it and it also does the trick.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yep. That's another good tip.

JR Ryall:

If you want to be very thrifty.

Jessie Sheehan:

You are dropping a lot of good tips. So then we're going to allow it to cool. Can we cool it to room temperature on the counter and then use it right away? Or do you like to get this into the fridge to chill?

JR Ryall:

You can I leave a cool on the counter room temperature just so that I don't warm up the fridge. And ideally before we're going to move on and use it to fill the eclairs. Cause there's whipped cream going in, great. If it's chilled.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah, of course, of course. So now we're going to set that aside and we're going to make our choux pastry. So we're going to heat our oven. For us, it's about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. We're going to line a baking sheet. Is there a baking sheet type?

JR Ryall:

I have a few different ones I use. I love a really thick, heavy baking sheet. Thinner sheets, sometimes when they hit a lot of heat in the oven, they can bend a little. And for something where you got a lovely little light eclair, it's just going to roll down the hill. So yeah, something really thick is good.

Jessie Sheehan:

And yours usually have sides on them?

JR Ryall:

The larger ones I have do have sides. And the smaller ones I have don't.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh, interesting.

JR Ryall:

And actually, I find that with this you can use either.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay. And we are going to line it with parchment paper and then we're going to place some water and some cubed salted butter. I thought this was fascinating, because here we almost always write recipes for unsalted butter.

JR Ryall:

Yes, I know.

Jessie Sheehan:

Would you say that in Ireland, and maybe it's true in England too, would you say that every single you do has salted butter regardless?

JR Ryall:

Mostly. And it's interesting the effect it has. So on the continent in Europe, so we're thinking France, Spain, Italy, where so many of the traditional things we're used to, the laminations, all these things originated were made with unsalted butter and they taste distinctively of where they're from when they're made with that butter. And if you take one of those recipes and make it where I'm from in Ireland, with the Irish salted butter, it suddenly tastes like it belongs more where we are. So you can make a shortbread in France with unsalted butter. You can make a shortbread in Ireland with salted butter. They taste very different. One tastes Irish and one tastes French.

So the tradition in Ireland, because we have such a rich history of making butter, all the butter used to be salted. And a little sidebar actually, Cork where I'm from, the agriculture region where most of the milk is produced is nicknamed the Golden Vale. And so much butter was made at the end of the 18th century in that region that the butter bank in Cork City, yes, there was a butter bank in Cork City, could regulate the world price for butter by releasing it to the market through Cork Port. So this will tell you the tradition of butter in Ireland. This is a real thing for us. And so all of this salted butter was the fat of our land, not like the unsalted butter you'd find in Normandy or wherever else. So we love to put it into the cakes and the pastries and in choux pastry, and you get a flavor that feels really like it belongs.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to place the water and the cubed salted butter into a pan over medium heat. Again, just a stainless steel situation over medium heat until the butter melts. And then we'll bring the mixture to a rolling boil. So do we turn up the heat once the butter melts to bring it to the boil? Or do we keep it on that medium heat and just wait till it boils?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I usually just keep it on a medium heat. You don't want it to start boiling with cubes of butter that have not melted. So once it reaches boiling point, you've then got to act fast with the next step. So keeping it on a medium heat means the butter will definitely be melted by the time-

Jessie Sheehan:

Why is it bad for it to boil before the butter melts?

JR Ryall:

So like all pastries, the proportion is really important of how much egg is in proportion to flour, how much flour is in proportion to water, and how much eggs and the butter, et cetera. So if it boils for a minute or two or your back is turned, you evaporate the water and suddenly you have less water in the end pastry and it mightn't work. So I think that's one of the bits with choux pastry that people might get caught out on. So it's a job. I stand by the pot medium heat, and once we see it come to simmering point, then we move on to the next step.

Jessie Sheehan:

That's such a smart tip. I think people get into trouble a lot with browning butter because they don't understand that they are actually losing.

JR Ryall:

Oh yeah. Evaporation is the-

Jessie Sheehan:

The water from the butter.

JR Ryall:

So there's many processes going on.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah. So interesting. Now we're going to remove the pan from the heat. Once we get to that rolling boil, immediately we're going to add strong flour to the pan. Strong as our bread flour, correct?

JR Ryall:

Yeah. So this would be a high protein flour. We call it strong flour at home in Ireland here, something you'd use for bread. If you're looking at percentage protein, it's the 13 or higher is good. And the reason we like a strong or high protein, high gluten flour is that that extra percent or two of gluten makes a dough that's slightly more elastic. And the magic of choux pastry is that it expands a lot as it bakes. And if the dough has more elasticity, it can tolerate the stretch. You get a better surface, you get a better shape, and it traps more steam. Because unlike a lot of pastries, choux pastry is steam powered. You've got all that water and egg in the pastry. And in the heat of a hot oven that turns to steam. And you go from having a ball of pastry that's the size of a hazelnut to something that actually it's a pastry ready to eat. And that's the magic of it. So strong flour all the way.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. Is there a type?

JR Ryall:

For this, a normal wooden spoon I like. Yeah, it could be flat-bottomed. It could be round bottomed. Either will do.

Jessie Sheehan:

And we're going to stir vigorously until the mixture comes together and pulls away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball.

JR Ryall:

That takes about a minute. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

We're going to return the pan. So we've done this off the heat. We have taken our mixture off the heat as soon as it got to a rolling boil. We've added our flour off the heat and stirred off the heat until it pulls away from the sides of the pan to form a ball. Then we return the pan to medium low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture, I love this, starts to fry or stick.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. Or fir, we say. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Fir.

JR Ryall:

You get it. So the flour has gone into the liquid, you've beaten it together, the puck goes back in the heat. And over that next minute whilst you're beating the pastry, number one, you're creating the texture you want. You're mixing everything really, really well. That's very important, but you're keeping it hot for that time. And that's also part of the process of ending up with a good choux pastry. And it'll stick ever so slightly in a layer to the base of the pan. But that's actually part of this process. It's a time-honored way of doing it. It's not something I invented, but it's something I've inherited.

Jessie Sheehan:

That'll take about a minute. And I thought this was so interesting, JR. I feel like it's different. It's definitely different than my own choux recipe. I thought it was interesting to add the flour off the heat.

JR Ryall:

I do that because I find when the liquid is boiling, if the flour goes in, it can sometimes jump around a bit. Some can fall out of the pot by taking it off the heat just for that 20 seconds it takes to add the flour and begin to mix it or maybe a little longer. You give yourself a bit more control. So I think-

Jessie Sheehan:

But you do mix the flour in until it's thoroughly combined and then return.

JR Ryall:

It and then return to the heat. And we're really beating it at that point to make sure everything without doubt is thoroughly combined and it has a completely even texture at that point.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah. Now we're going to remove it from the heat and transfer the hot dough to the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. We're going to mix on low speed until it's cooled. Now this is just a selfish quarry of my own, because I have a gouger recipe and I actually just do this part by hand. I don't put it in the stand mixer. Is that a problem?

JR Ryall:

No. And if you're doing a small quantity, you can do it by hand. What can happen is if the pots just come off the heat and someone goes straight for it, the pot can sometimes be so hot you scramble a little bit of egg. So you do have to wait the cooling time. I'm a little impatient sometimes. If you put the choux pastry into the stand mixer and start mixing it at a low speed, it cools down a bit quicker.

Jessie Sheehan:

Down much faster.

JR Ryall:

And if you decide to scale the recipe up because you want to make more, the mixer gives great consistency. It means that you're really watching the texture while you're doing the next step, which is adding the egg. Whereas if you have egg in one hand and a spoon and the other, you get great judgment with the mixer.

Jessie Sheehan:

It's basically we're trying to, we want to lower the temperature of the dough before we add the eggs, hence the stirring by-

JR Ryall:

Yeah, it can be pretty warm, but you don't want it to be literally the egg to steam as it's hitting the dough.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to crack eggs into a bowl and beat them together. You like to add them, whether it's a stand mixer or we're doing it by hand. When you add them, you want them already to be mixed up.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I like to give it its best chance. So if I've already beaten the egg before it goes into the dough, half the mixing is already done. Whereas when I made choux pastry before I went to Ballymaloe as a kid from books, you'd crack a whole egg in on top of the pastry. And you'd be chasing the yolk and the white around the bowl. And then some bits would be more white dissolved and some bits would have incorporated more yolk. I think once you try it in the method where you whisk the eggs first, you'll never really go back.

Jessie Sheehan:

We're going to crack the eggs into a bowl, beat those together, and then with the stand mixer running on low speed, we're going to gradually add the eggs just to warm our dough in small amounts. And we'll wait for the beaten egg to be fully incorporated before we add more.

JR Ryall:

Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:

When three quarters of the beaten eggs are added, we'll then just start to add the remainder little by little because you might not need all the eggs.

JR Ryall:

So this is the ambiguous territory. Did some of the water evaporate? There's these things where you can't measure that, but it could have happened. Or maybe your large eggs aren't as large as normal. Or maybe one of them is a whopper. We have eggs that come in from the farm of Ballymaloe and we don't grade them. They're laid that morning and you get what nature gives you. So it's really the reminder is that that end part of the process where you're adding the egg, that's when you use your judgment. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yep. Well you say just enough eggs to make a shiny and smooth dough that drops smoothly from the paddle attachment. Are we picturing a thick chocolate sauce or ketchup?

JR Ryall:

Thicker than that. Yeah, so this is not like sauce territory. It very much when you lift the paddle out of the bowl of choux pastry. It'll take five or six seconds and the pastry begins to move slowly off the paddle. And when some falls, what remains in the paddle often forms quite a nice V-shape. It shouldn't be so stiff that it's raggy and it shouldn't be so loose that it just slipped off. And that's a really nice indication. So the pastry will be glossy and shiny, ultra smooth, but has just enough resistance to hold on for a little bit and then it falls off.

Jessie Sheehan:

You say the dough should be just thick enough to hold the shape when it's piped. And we should resist the temptation to add any more beaten egg because too much egg will make it too loose and then the pastry will probably maybe expand a little bit, not as dramatically as we want.

JR Ryall:

You lose the shape when it bakes. Sometimes they're more prone to collapsing. What's happened to me in my own experience. You'll get a flatter if you're baking them into, I say, a profiterole shape and you want to be a beautiful round little sphere. You'll have a very squatty little shape to it. Or an eclair mightn't be as fluffy as you want it.

Jessie Sheehan:

And that's all due to a little bit too much egg. It's so interesting

JR Ryall:

Yeah. And if you don't have enough egg, you tend to get many more cracks in the surface of the pastry. Because it's a little drier going into the oven and in the heat of the oven, a crust forms even quicker than you want. And then those crusts break and you end up with these things that look like cabbages.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to fill a canvas piping or pastry bag. Is there a brand that you like?

JR Ryall:

The one we use is French, it's Matfer. And I like canvas bags, because you've great grip on them. And I wash it out and use it again. I know lots of people use disposable ones, but I suppose my own angle is nothing is really disposable in the world. If you're deciding to use it once and you're dumping, it's going somewhere.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah.

JR Ryall:

It doesn't disappear.

Jessie Sheehan:

No it's true. It's true.

JR Ryall:

So all these little things add up. Yeah. And a canvas bag is really nice to use.

Jessie Sheehan:

And do you wash a canvas bag like in a dishwasher or do you wash it by hand?

JR Ryall:

I wash it in soapy water.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. And then open it up and unless it sits somewhere warm and it dries out.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we're going to fill a canvas piping or pastry bag fitted with a third of an inch round tip. We'll fill it with the choux pastry and then we'll pipe the dough onto our prepared baking sheet with the parchment paper. We'll pipe our dough into four inch strips, leaving about one and a half inches between each eclair because they do expand. The egg wash is not essential. I thought that was interesting. Because we're going to egg wash these. Why isn't it essential?

JR Ryall:

So in the case of turning them into chocolate eclairs, they're going to be coated in chocolate. So the egg is really a veneer on the top. Whether you egg wash it or not, for the most part the pastry will bake very, very similarly. So you might be breaking an extra egg to egg wash them, and then you're going to cover it. So save the egg. I suppose the sensible thing to do. But if you're making choux pastry where later on you might want to sprinkle it with powdered sugar instead of chocolate, having that shiny top might make all the difference.

Jessie Sheehan:

So the egg wash is just for color really here.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. So it depends on where you're going after.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah, I would just think that with an eclair, and I've never seen a Ballymaloe one, but even though the chocolate's on the top, maybe the color of the choux on the side.

JR Ryall:

So you could do.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay. Good to know.

JR Ryall:

So it's sort of optional.

Jessie Sheehan:

Do you?

JR Ryall:

I usually don't. And it's not the making or breaking of it. So it's an optional step and you may just feel that it's not necessary to dirty another bit of equipment.

Jessie Sheehan:

And I also love that your egg wash has a teeny bit of salt in it because mine does as well. Just a little bit of salt. It breaks down the white.

JR Ryall:

The smallest pinch and it's amazing. It goes so much further. You get a really even coating.

Jessie Sheehan:

And a little bit of flavor.

JR Ryall:

This is egg wash for anything.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah. Agree. Then I thought this was so interesting, we're going to sprinkle a few drops of cold water over the top of the baking sheet. Is it also on top of the choux itself?

JR Ryall:

If it touches the choux, it doesn't really matter so much because-

Jessie Sheehan:

But it's mostly you want it on the paper?

JR Ryall:

Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Why?

JR Ryall:

I sprinkle a little on the tray. So with the choux pastry, this is going to go into a hot oven, 400, 410, so hotter than you'd be baking cakes at normally. And the objective when baking choux pastry is to get heat to penetrate the pastry as quickly as possible so that the moisture in the pastry turns to steam. If there's a few drops of water on the tray, they'll be the first things to evaporate. They make a little bit of steam in the oven and this all goes towards helping make the right environment. Now it really depends on the oven. Some ovens have a draft, they let the steam out as it bakes. Some ovens trap the steam in. There's a lot of wiggle room as to whether or not these drops of water will be helpful or not. But I'm all for setting myself up for success. It's great to have them on the tray one way or the other. They evaporate. And if it's an oven where the steam can accumulate all the better.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah, I have a fan oven, because I have convection, so would it not work in my oven?

JR Ryall:

Some fan ovens will remove the steam as they bake. Now I find with choux pastry actually, I like to turn, if it's fan oven, turn the fan to its lowest setting, if that's an option. And if you have what we would call a conventional oven, one that isn't fan assisted or it could be a gas oven, choux pastry tends to bake nicer in those ovens if there's nothing on it. So this is plain choux pastry. Now for people who are familiar with working with crackolin, that lovely biscuity makes that you put on top of the unbaked choux pastry, it bakes and collapses over the pastry as it expands and gives this amazing crackly crust. In my experimenting, it bakes better in a fan assisted oven.

Jessie Sheehan:

Interesting

JR Ryall:

And choux pastry that has nothing on it bakes better in a non-fan system.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh, I love it.

JR Ryall:

These are all nuances. It's trial and error testing.

Jessie Sheehan:

Would this be an example of something, JR, that you added to the recipe, the idea of putting water on the pan or was that-

JR Ryall:

Oh no, I saw Meimei do it that first day.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh my god.

JR Ryall:

And she literally wet her fingers and splashed them towards the eclairs and some landed on the pastry, some on the pan. And I remembered it. And when you sometimes wonder what's the secret? Why are they so much better when Meimei makes them? And I want to emulate it. So even if it's the case that it is or isn't the secret to the success, it's quite nice to uphold those traditions.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh, I love it.

JR Ryall:

You do it because you were taught to do it that way. And if it's no harm and it's fun, and there's a nostalgia and there's a preservation of heritage. All of those.

Jessie Sheehan:

I love it.

JR Ryall:

I'm a sucker for all of that.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh my gosh, me too.

JR Ryall:

So to the day I die, I'll be splashing a little water on. Even if-

Jessie Sheehan:

I love it. I love it. I love those things where when somebody asks you why you do it, you're like because that's how I was taught.

JR Ryall:

And costs no effort and I think of Meimei, and it's these sort of things.

Jessie Sheehan:

I love it.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, it's lovely. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

And so we're going to bake this in the center of the oven for about 20 minutes. Then we're going to reduce the heat to about 350-ish, Bake for another 15 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden. We do not want to be tempted to open the door too soon. You don't do any rotating?

JR Ryall:

No, not for a long time. Now I'm lucky I have a glass panel on the door of my oven so I can see in. Trickier when you don't. I know. So usually the pastry will never be fully cooked before 25 minutes. It's not possible because the steam has to get out and there's a lot going on in the oven and the pastry's room temperature's heating up. So I wouldn't open the oven before that. And then you can be gentle, you can have a peep. Usually a little bit of steam will come out, and a second glance you'll learn an awful lot. So if they don't look set and golden, I wouldn't open the door more than an inch at the beginning. Cautious approach.

Jessie Sheehan:

You say if the pastry is not crisp sufficiently on the outside, then you risk that the eclairs might collapse when the doors opened.

JR Ryall:

And it's happened me many times. And you learn a lesson and then you relearn it, and that's the better way.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah, it takes me like many mistakes before I'm like, "Oh yeah."

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I've learned the hard way with this one.

Jessie Sheehan:

Then we do remove the tray from the oven. So we're at about 35 minutes. We're going to make a small circular hole in the underside of the bottom of each eclair with the tip of a small knife, like a paring knife. And we do this so that the steam can escape from the center of the choux pastry. And also, so when we pipe the filling into the hole, we have our hole-

JR Ryall:

You've got an entry point.

Jessie Sheehan:

Right? So we are going to return this to the oven, bake for another five minutes to dry out the inside of the pastry. So if we weren't filling, if we were making a profiterole or if we making gougere, would we not put the hole in because we don't have to put anything? Or would you just make a poke for steam?

JR Ryall:

If it's something like a profiterole, lovely, if it's totally crisp. You could poke just a little hole that'll act as a vent, because you're not going to need an entry point for the tip of a piping bag later on. So if it's going to be a profiterole that exactly you cut it across the equator and maybe you're filling it with a ball of ice cream or something, you just want to make sure it's crisp. As something like a gougere, often the center is meant to be slightly soft in any case. That would be the-

Jessie Sheehan:

So you wouldn't see any need?

JR Ryall:

And they're being eaten hot from the oven usually. That's the tradition of that.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yep, that makes sense. That makes sense. So when the pastry inside is crisp and dry, it's ready to remove from the oven. And we'll cool it on a wire rack. My idea was your choux pastry is cool, your pastry cream is cool. Do we assemble these two items and then make our chocolate sauce? Or would you make the chocolate sauce right now as the choux pastry cools?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, so I would like to make a finished preparing the creme légere. So at this point.

Jessie Sheehan:

So at this point you'd add the whipped cream?

JR Ryall:

At this point, add the whipped cream to the pastry cream. So if you take the pastry cream out of the fridge, it sets quite stiff. So I like to work that for a minute in a bowl on its own?

Jessie Sheehan:

With a whisk?

JR Ryall:

It smooths out a little bit. Could be a whisk, it depends on how much you have, but you can kind of see how you feel the texture is. Working it for a minute, it'll be still very thick, but it'll be smooth again. Then the cream goes in much nicer.

Jessie Sheehan:

So I had a question about the cream. When you say whipped cream, I know it's unflavored because then it would be chantilly cream, but is it stiff peaks? Is it medium peaks? Is it soft peaks? What kind of cream are we-

JR Ryall:

For this, I'd like the cream to be stiff.

Jessie Sheehan:

Stiff.

JR Ryall:

I think so because though if I was serving whipped cream alongside a pie or something, lovely and soft. But yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah.

JR Ryall:

Stiff for this is good because the stiff cream goes into the stiff pastry cream.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect.

JR Ryall:

And it has a good holding consistency.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect. So first step after, while our choux pastry is cooling, we're going to do that final step of the cream, taking the cool pastry cream, folding in the whipped cream. Then we're going to fit another canvas piping pastry bag as we did with the choux bag. This time we're going to put a quarter inch round tip. Or if we happen to have a special eclair piping nozzle, we will use that. So my question is what is a special eclair piping nozzle and where am I buying one?

JR Ryall:

It's almost like a narrow little steel pipe with an angled end on it, quite a wide syringe almost. And you can put it into the bottom of the piping bag. And because it has length and it's narrow, you can push it deep into something like an eclair and start filling from one of the ends as you draw the tip back out through the hole that you've made. Does that make sense? You insert it into the pastry. And as you withdraw it, you put pressure on the bag so that whatever cream you have starts filling the pastry. You could use it for filling. So a cream horn, it's almost that level of eccentricity that the French can achieve in perfection.

Jessie Sheehan:

And then we all want to copy.

JR Ryall:

And many of us will live our lives happily without such things, but for those of us who have them, it's a treat.

Jessie Sheehan:

But you're still using that hole that you made that's in the center. You're not going through one of the ends of the eclair.

JR Ryall:

No, no no. You could do that, but yeah, no, I'd still use the same hole. And so it's really more just a nod for the 1%.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes, I love it. Well, the 1% are our listeners.

JR Ryall:

Great.

Jessie Sheehan:

So they're going to like that. So we're going to fill the bag with the cream mixture and pipe it into each eclair through the hole on the bottom. And is it that kind of thing? I remember learning this even though I don't do it very frequently, but we know we have enough cream in our eclair. Do we hold it in our hand and we can feel-

JR Ryall:

You can feel the weight.

Jessie Sheehan:

Is that how you do it or do you just know now?

JR Ryall:

Sometimes when you're filling, there might be tiny little perforations in the pastry, small little holes that just developed during baking. And you'll be putting pressure on the canvas piping bag. The creme légere is going in. And a tiny bit will spurt out one of the ends and you'll know it's there. And that's absolutely fine. And this is the nature of a handmade product. You'll get a little bit of that. But generally you'll feel the weight of it. You'll know you squeeze the bite to such an extent that enough cream has gone in. And also the cream will come out to the hole where the tip of the piping bag is. And that's the sign.

Jessie Sheehan:

You know you're done. And now we make our chocolate glaze. Yes?

JR Ryall:

Now we make the glaze.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes. No, we put these aside or do you don't want to put them in the fridge?

JR Ryall:

No, at this point I keep them to one side. You could put them in the fridge, but-

Jessie Sheehan:

I worry they would get not crispy if they were in the fridge.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I try to just move straight on at this point.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay. Perfect. So now we're going to make the chocolate glaze. Is it essentially semi-sweet chocolate or is it a little more bitter than... I think semi-sweet is like 60%. This is more-

JR Ryall:

Yeah, it could be anything in the 60 to 70 territory.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay, perfect.

JR Ryall:

If you go past 70, I know people love dark chocolate things, but it can be detrimental. You almost lose what is just immediate chocolate flavor. Yes. So yeah, it needs to have a little bit of its own sweetness. So yeah, something like 62, 64, 66.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect.

JR Ryall:

Depending what your favorite chocolate is. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect.

JR Ryall:

That should work fine.

Jessie Sheehan:

So we'll place our semi-sweet chocolate, two tablespoons of water and salted butter, we now know it's always going to be salted, in a heatproof bowl set over a pan like a bain-marie in a heated bowl set over a pan of hot water. Is the water simmering?

JR Ryall:

Yeah, just lightly bubbling is fine. And then the steam warms the bowl.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect. We will stir the ingredients, stir as the ingredients melt until the mixture smooth. Then we'll remove from the heat and we'll whisk in eggs. So it's not just yolks, it's actual-

JR Ryall:

The whole eggs.

Jessie Sheehan:

Amazing.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, when you haven't done it before, it seems a little peculiar. So you'll have the warm chocolate mixture, and it will be warm. And you crack both eggs in to the mixture. And then go in with a whisk and start beating it. And for a moment you will wonder, oh gosh, what's going to happen? And like lots of chocolate things, they can go on the cusp of splitting and suddenly it forms the glossy emulsion.

Jessie Sheehan:

Oh my gosh.

JR Ryall:

So that's where a large egg is important. And if it's the case that you think it's a little stiffer, you're unsure, add another teaspoon of water. It'll loosen the texture a little. Warm water. Because chocolate things-

Jessie Sheehan:

Are finicky.

JR Ryall:

Frostings and icings, they're temperature sensitive. So if it's suddenly got too cool and starts to firm up, you can warm it up a little bit. And that helps for consistency.

Jessie Sheehan:

And do we need to worry about those eggs curdling because the chocolate's hot?

JR Ryall:

No, the chocolate's warm. So when you melt chocolate, it's not even halfway to boiling point normally. So if the chocolate was hot enough to scramble the egg, you've probably destroyed the chocolate. Yeah, you might have bigger problems.

Jessie Sheehan:

We're going to whisk in the eggs till the glaze is smooth and glossy. And I have a note, does the glaze with eggs have a name? But we already discussed that.

JR Ryall:

But maybe someone knows about it.

Jessie Sheehan:

I know.

JR Ryall:

I guess when you add any sort of liquid to chocolate, the general name is ganache. And I've done studies of different chocolatiers. And I watched someone make lots of ganaches with tea one time, a jasmine tea, and blend that into chocolate with no dairy or anything.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes, I've seen that too.

JR Ryall:

And that was ganache for them. And then growing up I learned it more is the butter, cream territory. And in this case, the liquid is coming in butter, water and in egg form. So I guess it's a kind of-

Jessie Sheehan:

I feel like there's a whole branch of ganache that's a water ganache. And those are the ones where you use tea or you use coffee. It's so interesting.

JR Ryall:

And I feel like this, it's a subsection because eggs are a large portion. This water of course is the yolk, which is great.

Jessie Sheehan:

I wonder if people-

JR Ryall:

Multiplying properties.

Jessie Sheehan:

But the eggs aren't actually cooked.

JR Ryall:

No, they're not. So this is where the eggs have to be brilliant. And it goes back to near your eggs come from, lovely organic eggs. I suppose I'm very lucky in that the hens are literally in the field beside me, which is the ideal scenario. But most people should have access to really good eggs.

Jessie Sheehan:

Then we're going to transfer the chocolate sauce to a dipping bowl. Is there a particular kind of bowl you like for this? I assume you want it to be relatively shallow.

JR Ryall:

It depends. If the bowl you've made the glaze in has a flat area in the base of it and you feel like the glaze you've made, is that a nice thickness for dipping? Just go ahead and use that bowl. But it's good to have something you're comfortable in. So you can pick up one of the eclairs, and just hold it between two of your fingers and check if the eclair fits nicely into the bowl you're going to use. So that can be something you can think about earlier on. And if the bowl that you needed to use that was heatproof is too wide or an awkward shape for this, transfer it into something that's really comfortable for the dipping, that'll just make the process nicer. I know it might dirty another the bowl, but you'll end up with-

Jessie Sheehan:

Yeah, it's worth it.

JR Ryall:

You'll have a better finish and the job is easier.

Jessie Sheehan:

Does the glaze need to set at all or we use it right away?

JR Ryall:

No, I like to go with it while it's still a little bit warm. So at this point, if you checked the temperature with your finger, it'll be tepid or just above tepid. Now if it seems like it's quite stiff, check the temperature and if it seems a little cool, I would place the bowl onto what I was using as the bain-marie or double boiler. And the little bit of warmth in that water can sometimes just bring it up a degree or two, and that might be all it needs.

Jessie Sheehan:

Okay. Perfect.

JR Ryall:

So you can warm it up a little-

Jessie Sheehan:

Or a teeny, tiny bit of warm water.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, yeah. A teaspoon hot water or a little bit more and that'll loosen it and yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

Perfect. So we're going to hold each eclair between our thumb and our forefinger and invert the eclairs, so the top is facing down. And dip it into the chocolate glaze so it covers no more than one third of the pastry. Eclairs tend not to have... Their ends aren't covered. It tends to be a strip along the top side of the choux.

JR Ryall:

So if you look at an eclair straight on, so you're looking down the tube of it, I like for the glaze to come one third of the way down the side. So it doesn't actually come as far as the widest part.

Jessie Sheehan:

Yes.

JR Ryall:

That'll give you a great aesthetic.

Jessie Sheehan:

I see what you mean. I see what you mean.

JR Ryall:

So you can see a nice board of the pastry around it. Also as a proportion thing, that's a nice amount of chocolate for the amount of pastry and cream you have.

Jessie Sheehan:

So you'd want to make sure you don't dip so deeply that you get it to the halfway point.

JR Ryall:

Exactly.

Jessie Sheehan:

I get that.

JR Ryall:

Yeah. Exactly. So yeah. Stay clear of the halfway point. I think that's a good tip for getting the right amount on. If you go around the pastry shops in Paris or these capitals for pastry, sometimes they'll even only have the glaze. They'll pipe it on a strip on the top. Or it might not even come a fraction of the way down. And so that's a styling thing. It depends how thick it is, but for this kind of glaze, yeah, definitely. I think that's where it should end.

Jessie Sheehan:

I cannot wait to come to Ballymaloe and eat an eclair with you.

JR Ryall:

Or let me know when you're coming to Europe and we'll do a bakery crawl.

Jessie Sheehan:

I know. I know. Then we'll lift the eclair out of the glaze and let any of the surplus drip off before turning it right way up again.

JR Ryall:

Yes.

Jessie Sheehan:

Do we just wait until we see a droplet, then there's nothing, then you're good to go.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, that's usually good to go. Yeah.

Jessie Sheehan:

And then we'll arrange on a pretty plate and serve. We don't let it set any more than that.

JR Ryall:

You can do. I have sometimes you make spare and I've kept them for several hours in the fridge. The pastry starts to soften slightly. It absorbs moisture from the cream. Just being in a fridge can be detrimental to pastry. So if you can eat them within an hour, that's when you're going to dazzle people. If you eat them after that, they're going to be really good. And if you eat them the next day, it's a bit of a pity. But they'll still be nice. So you can draw a graph of peak pleasure. Is that first hour.

Jessie Sheehan:

Down to a bit of a pity.

JR Ryall:

Yeah, I know for all the work it takes, because if you're going to do all these multi-components, you've made pastry, you've made pastry cream, you've made the glaze, it all takes a bit of work. So these are things I love to do and I know I can pull it off. And then get them to people. And then people will think back to the best eclairs they've ever had and it'll be the one you've made them.

Jessie Sheehan:

Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, JR. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.

JR Ryall:

Oh, thank you. Really, I'm honored and such a pleasure. Thanks so much, Jessie.

Jessie Sheehan:

You're so welcome. That's it for today's show. Thank you to Ghirardelli Professional Products for supporting this episode. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And tell your pals about us. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.com. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thank you to Good Studio in Brooklyn. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.