{"id":477784,"date":"2026-06-01T17:28:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T17:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/477784\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T17:28:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T17:28:30","slug":"baking-with-the-professionals-at-tu-dublins-university-level-pastry-masterclass-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/477784\/","title":{"rendered":"Baking with the professionals at TU Dublin\u2019s university-level pastry masterclass \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like cooking<\/a> and am not terrible, except when it comes to baking; my ineptitude in that sphere was exposed on national television<\/a> during what I call \u201cdessert storm\u201d but others know as Celebrity MasterChef. <\/p>\n

I ended up on the programme<\/a>, a long time ago, for reasons that are still beyond me, and made the mistake of telling the producers I was a bad baker. Once they knew my Achilles\u2019 heel, they went for it and made sure I was on pastry stations and desserts on every single programme \u2013 because if there is one thing reality TV loves, it is somebody melting down when the Valrhona chocolate in their mousse does not. <\/p>\n

I did okay for a while \u2013 certainly better than even those closest to me predicted \u2013 and even reached the semi-final, where I pitched a prosecco and lavender poached pear served with a cr\u00e8me Anglais and home-made shortbread to Dylan McGrath<\/a> as my menu option. <\/p>\n

It all went swimmingly until the end stages when I realised I\u2018d forgotten to add the pinch of lavender. I could have just carried on regardless but instead whacked in a massive bunch at the death to make up for its late arrival in the pot. It was all too much and I \u2013 effectively \u2013 ended up serving soap to my television guests. <\/p>\n

This is all by way of saying I hate baking, always have and always will. So, when I was invited into the TU Dublin School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology for a pastry masterclass with Paul Kelly of the Merrion Hotel, I of course said no. No, I did not say no. I say yes, big eejit that I am. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0I survived \u2018Celebrity MasterChef\u2019 but got my fingers burntOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

And so I find myself in a basement kitchen, surrounded by students assiduously making biscotti and chocolate chip cookies under Kelly\u2019s watchful gaze. <\/p>\n

The atmosphere is calm and far from the shoutiness you might expect in a typical restaurant kitchen, with the students ranging in age from their late teens to late 30s.<\/p>\n

Some have \u201ca little bit of experience working in the industry and others have, basically no experience whatsoever,\u201d Kelly says. \u201cThere\u2019s the ones that have no idea, probably never boiled an egg \u2013 like myself when I started. And then there\u2019s other people who just really enjoy [baking] and want to understand the more technical aspects.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Kelly, executive pastry chef at the Merrion Hotel and lecturer at TU Dublin, shows Conor Pope the ropes. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien \"'Reader,‘Reader, it\u2019s not simple.’ Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

The pastry semester started with Kelly taking the students \u201con a journey\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning, they get to know kitchen etiquette because it\u2019s a hazardous place, with hot ovens, sharp knives, sharp edges. And if you don\u2019t wear the right equipment, if you don\u2019t have your safety shoes on, you can slip very quickly. So, from the beginning, we show them around the kitchen, introduce them to the equipment. I\u2019m constantly watching people to see how they\u2019re reacting with the ingredients, the machinery, how they\u2019re holding themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n

Given his role in Ireland\u2019s fine-dining realm, why does Kelly bother with teaching \u2013 those who can, do; and those who can\u2019t … etc? <\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoy sharing my knowledge and watching students progress, but I\u2019m learning too and revisiting all the old skills,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The most important skill, at least when it comes to baking, is precision, according to Kelly. When cooking, you can \u2013 more often than not \u2013 correct mistakes by adding more of one thing or another thing. If you make a mistake making pastry, more often than not you have to bin it and start again. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember when I switched over to desserts as probably one of the hardest seasons in my career. I did three years in the hot kitchen and the chef in the Park [Hotel] in Kenmare said, do you want to come back and do pastry? I couldn\u2019t understand how to make pastry. I couldn\u2019t add chocolate, properly. I couldn\u2019t even make scones. It was a tough transition to understand that, you know, the precision. But then it just kind of gelled. What I love about it is the creative side \u2013 it\u2019s just incredible. You know, in the Merrion and here we\u2019ve a great opportunity to be so creative \u2013 every day you\u2019re creating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Kelly (left), Conor Pope (centre) and students at TU Dublin. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

Tanaka Muchegwa, who is in his early twenties, is in the process of creating chocolate chip cookies. He works steadily, and all the cookies he presses on to the baking parchment are uniform in size and shape. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s working in the Carton House kitchen in Co Kildare alongside his studies but aspires to be a private chef sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

I ask what a private chef does. \u201cWell, I love football,\u201d Muchewaga says, unexpectedly. \u201cI think all the money is in football and all the top players have private chefs and they pay them like a lot of money.\u201d <\/p>\n

And how does he get into this beautiful game? <\/p>\n

He has a plan. He\u2019ll study in TU Dublin and work in Carton House \u2013 a place that is no stranger to high-performing sports teams. Once he has finished this course, he will study nutrition and create online content, hoping to catch the eye of football players. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 22 years old and my aim is to be a private chef before I am 30. But first I want to make sure I\u2019m really good at cooking, that I\u2019ve mastered the skills.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Kelly, Conor Pope and Tanaka Muchegwa. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kelly explains the cookie basics and the mistakes a home baker might make. \u201cThey might make it too fast or might not chill the dough properly. They also might make mistakes weighing everything. If that is not done properly, you\u2019re fighting a losing battle. And then you need to add your ingredients gradually and don\u2019t overmix it; if you overmix the cookie dough it becomes very, very tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stupidly, I tell Kelly I was on MasterChef and he exclaims with delight that my first task will thus be a doddle.<\/p>\n

This being the term before Easter, he and his students have made eggs and all I have to do is melt chocolate, pour it into a handmade piping bag and write Happy Easter on them. <\/p>\n

My heart sinks faster than a chocolate souffle in a draught. <\/p>\n

Kelly steers me to the microwave to melt the chocolate. \u201cWith small amounts, you can just whack it in, but you have to melt it slowly. A microwave heats from the centre out and you can be fooled very easily. It can look like it\u2019s melting nicely on the outside but the centre could be burnt. So do everything nice and slow \u2013 10 seconds, 10 seconds, 10 seconds.\u201d <\/p>\n

White chocolate liquefied, I pour a small amount into a tiny piping bag Kelly has crafted out of parchment paper. \u201cIt\u2019s very simple, left over right and under; that\u2019s it,\u201d he says, making another one. <\/p>\n

\"'And‘And this guy claims he was on MasterChef?’ Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

Reader, it\u2019s not simple. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is like our pencil, this is our pastry chef\u2019s pencil,\u201d Kelly says after he has made another 10 bags in less than a minute.<\/p>\n

He pipes a beautiful Happy Easter on an egg with the calligraphic skills of a fifth century Irish monk illuminating a manuscript. <\/p>\n

Then, it\u2019s my turn. <\/p>\n

I write Happy Easter like a four-year-old using their non-dominant hand. Kelly and his team watch on with sadness and sympathy in their eyes. I can almost hear them think: \u201cAnd this guy claims he was on MasterChef?\u201d<\/p>\n

We move on to twice-baked biscotti and then small discs of chocolate with TU Dublin stamped on them and painted in edible gold paint. <\/p>\n

It is all far more stressful than it sounds, so I do the right thing and leave the pastry chefs to chat to Jimmy Griffin, a sixth-generation baker from Galway \u2013 many will recall his family\u2019s bakery, which opened its doors in 1876. <\/p>\n

\"MasterMaster baker James Griffin. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

The bakery is closed now, and Griffin is the last in the line. Not only is he a baker, incidentally, he also has a black belt in Judo \u2013 handy for kneading dough, I wonder? On top of that, he\u2019s a pilot instructor and has written eight books. And he loves teaching in TU Dublin (and its predecessor, Dublin Institute of Technology), having done so for 14 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe start off doing basics like soda bread and non-enriched bread,\u201d he says. \u201cThings like pan white and brown, cobs, stuff like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

After that, they move on to enriched breads that have eggs, sugar and butter.<\/p>\n

Hearing the words egg, sugar and butter, I ask, when does a bread become a cake? He looks at me like I am the most stupid individual to ever enter the world of baking. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t. They are completely different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once they have completed those two modules, his students will learn how to make seeded breads and more. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Fresh bread from the oven: childhood memories and the aroma of bakingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the corridor, I bump into M\u00e1irt\u00edn Mac Con Iomaire, a food historian, TV chef and a lecturer in here for more than a quarter of a century.<\/p>\n

He says he met his tribe when he went to the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, one of the longest-established gatherings of food historians, chefs, food writers and food enthusiasts, in 2000. \u201cI got really interested in food history after that, he says.<\/p>\n

\"ChefChef and food historian M\u00e1irt\u00edn Mac Con Iomaire, a senior lecturer at TU Dublin’s School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

He documented the history of Irish cooking in the 20th century for his PhD and is full of stories of Dublin in the rare auld times.<\/p>\n

He recalls how one chef, Bill Ryan, got a job in the Gresham hotel in the 1950s after years working on the world\u2019s swankiest ocean liners. Not long after he started in the Dublin hotel he was putting the hors d\u2019oeuvres trolley together.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe sent it out, or tried to, but the waiter wouldn\u2019t take it. He was concerned one of the dishes being sent out was just plain raw cabbage. Ryan said it was called coleslaw so the waiter took it out and 10 minutes later, he was back asking for the name again and if there was any more because the diners were loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only has Mac Con Iomaire devoted much of his life to food anecdotes, he also thinks a lot about how we should teach others about food.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere used to be this idea of filling an empty head \u2013 the master-apprentice model \u2013 but here we felt we were on a journey with our students.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the turn of the century, he brought in the big-name chefs in Dublin, Ross Lewis, Kevin Thornton, Derry Clarke and others. \u201cWe did a workshop with them and explained we needed them to be mentors and said if they invested time in [the students], they would be repaid [and] the industry would improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

It worked. The school also sent, and continues to send, its best and brightest to some of the best restaurants in the world. \u201cWhen they came back, they realised the raw materials we have in Ireland are better. This generation is not saddled with postcolonial shame and they don\u2019t believe that everything outside of Ireland is better just because it\u2019s outside of Ireland.\u201d <\/p>\n

Amen to that, although even after this TU Dublin masterclass, I am confident that the baking you\u2019ll find abroad will most definitely be better than anything produced by my hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I like cooking and am not terrible, except when it comes to baking; my ineptitude in that sphere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21940,93,61,60,102067,72304],"class_list":["post-477784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-carton-house","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-merrion-hotel","tag-tu-dublin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}