Irish Dessert Recipes

Grandma's Irish Dessert Recipes Make Perfect Treats

The traditional Irish dessert recipes below are typical of a country blessed with its rich heritage of fine eating. Unpretentious and absolutely delicious, these Irish desserts are perfect for serving on any occasion.

Whether it's the apple cake, apple pie, sweet biscuit, or the extra-special Irish wedding cake, you will love eating these old-fashioned treats from the land of the shamrock. But please don't wait till Saint Patrick's Day. Put on a shamrock-green apron and try one of these authentic Irish dessert recipes today.

Irish Apple Cake Recipe

8 oz flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 4 oz sugar, 4 oz butter, 3 or 4 cooking apples, 1 egg (beaten), milk. Put flour, baking powder and sugar into a mixing bowl. Mix together. Now roughly chop up the butter. Do not cream or rub in. Peel the cooking apples and slice into the mixture, then stir in the beaten egg and sufficient milk to make a fairly stiff batter. This will be quite lumpy with apples and butter, but it is correct. Pour into a greased tin and bake for about an hour in a moderate oven (375°F).

In Ireland this is served hot with custard or cream, or cut into slices and spread with butter. A little sugar sprinkled on top, halfway through baking, improves the appearance. --Erina

Irish Potato Biscuit Recipe

This was often made by Mom. As the recipe says, it goes well with preserves, jam or jelly.

Boil and mash six or eight potatoes. While warm, lay on a floured pastry board and run the rolling pin over and over them till they are free from lumps. Turn into a bowl, wet with a cup of sweet milk, add a teaspoon of melted butter. When well mixed, work in 1/2 cup flour (salted) or just enough to make a soft dough. Return to the board, roll out quickly and lightly into a thin sheet, and cut into round cakes. Bake in a quick oven. Butter as soon as they are done, laying one on top of the other in a pile. Eat before they fall.

The excellence of potato biscuits depends very greatly upon the softness of the dough, light handling, and quick baking. If properly made, they will be found extremely nice. A favorite Irish dish. A dessert in its own right when eaten with preserves.

Irish Brown Bread Recipe

4 cups graham flour (or 3 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup bran), 1 cup black molasses, 2 cups sour milk, 2 teaspoons soda, 1 teaspoon salt. Mix and shape dough into a round loaf, place on floured baking sheet; bake at 350°F for more than one hour, until done. Keeps well. Delicious when served with fresh butter and fruit preserves.

Belfast Cake Recipe

One egg, half cup butter, one and half cups buttermilk, two cups Graham flour, one cup sugar, one cup stoned raisins, one saltspoon nutmeg, half teaspoon salt, one teaspoon baking soda. Mix all dry ingredients together. Very good.

Pare and take out the cores of the apples, cutting each apple into four or eight pieces, according to their size. Lay them neatly in a baking dish, seasoning them with brown sugar and any spice, such as pounded cloves and cinnamon, or grated lemon peel. A little quince marmalade gives a fine flavor to the pie. Add a little water and cover with puff paste. Bake for an hour.

One and one-half cups sugar and one cup butter, beat to a cream; add the beaten yolks of two eggs, three-fourths of a cup of milk less two teaspoonfuls reserved for dissolving soda, two and one-half cups of flour, half a nutmeg, half pound raisins, quarter pound currants, half teaspoonful soda; lastly add the beaten whites of two eggs. Stir well. --Mrs. H. Andrews

Boil either Irish or sweet potatoes until well done, mash and rub through a sieve; to a pint of pulp, add three pints of sweet milk, tablespoon of melted butter, teacup of sugar, three eggs, pinch of salt, and nutmeg or lemon to flavor. Use rich paste for under crust.

One and one-half pints of mashed potato, one teacup of sugar, one-half cup of butter, one cup of flour, one quart of milk, four eggs, and salt to taste. Flavor with lemon, nutmeg, or vanilla. Bake one hour. --Mrs. J. F. McNeal