mccambridges artisan treats & coffee al fresco

aidan was a student in galway so when we met, he took me to all his old haunts; mccambridges was the first stop on a tour which included swimming at salthill, guiness at naughton's and mcdonagh's fish and chips.

now the much loved mccambridges on shop street, has undergone a transformation! call in and enjoy a coffee at the new barista style coffee bar or watch the world go by from a table at their pavement cafe.

though the changes will delight you, here to stay is the passion for selecting in-season food from local farms, butchers, bakeries and artisan food producers:


‘the aim of this project is to expand the variety of locally sourced quality foods, as well as the best of irish and international gourmet foods for our customers,’ said eoin mccambridge, managing director.


we're also glad to see that you can now buy murphy's icecream by the scoop (sean murphy pictured with natalie mccambridge outside the shop) and that cocoa bean and skelligs are still old favourites!


'we love your bars of choc and skelligs truffles are selling well' said norma mccambridge who then confided 'i love the gin and tonic'. There is something about that bar in it's purple wrapper bursting with bubbles that makes you feel like you're having the first zesty drink on a hot summer night by the sea...

become a chocolatier!

if you can't make it to our factory shop, everyone who orders cocoa bean or skelligs chocolates online from http://www.skelligschocolate.com/ will be automatically entered into the competition. so those of you stuck in jobs over the summer or unable to leap on the next flight, train or boat will still get a chance to win this brilliant prize!

if you are planing to come to kerry over the summer this is when we are open:

july-august 2009

monday –friday
from 10.00 until 17.00.

saturday & sunday
from 12.00 until 17.00




bring a picnic and your swimming togs and enjoy chocolate on the beach.

open this weekend

remember this weekend is our first of the summer where our factory counter is open for tasters and chocolate retail therapy!

glad you enjoyed it...

it was lovely to see that those chocoholic frolic readers that voted on our recent poll either had very much enjoyed their trip to our st finian's bay chocolate factory or would love to go in the future.

we look forward to seeing you all at some point in the future (the middle of next week is forecast to be nice and sunny!) and have a look at my blog from september 12th last year for some other ideas of lovely things to do in the area.

harvey nichols

if you are in london, make sure you zoom up the express lift to the 5th floor of harvey nichols flagship shop and browse the food hall. http://www.harveynichols.com/

of course i'd advise you to head straight for the chocolate bars and the cocoa bean collection! however, once you've satisfied your cocoa cravings, look around at all the other delights on offer. my favourite picnic food includes thin slivers of salami from the delicatessen, in season salad leaves, english tomatoes, crusty bread and seggiano raw artichoke pate. follow this with a summery cocoa bean gin and tonic chocolate bar and take home the harvey nichols own brand jasmine tea leaves.

if you're not keen on picnics, treat yourself to lunch on the roof terrace! if you can't make it to london, you'll find fabulous food halls in dublin, manchester, leeds, birmingham and edinburgh.

fuse festival

last night, i took esme to a night time extravaganza of fire, dancing and music. the fact that it was after her little sisters were already in bed made it even more thrilling. here we are eating a cone of hot chips, watching the circle of fire and waiting for it to begin. in the picture below you can see two extremely tall skeletons doing the salsa -complete with lifts! We got home close to midnight and drank cocoa bean hot chocolate with cinnamon - sipping it out in the back garden with the summer smell of honeysuckle still floating through the chilly night air.

better than bucket chemistry or leaving nigella

muffins are my new favourite discovery! i have eaten them for many years but only rarely made them and never before realised that they free you from the baking tyranny of sieves and scales.


i love them! they take me back to the heady days of bucket chemistry before the rigorous precision of a-level or restrictive safety policies: we had great fun throwing a load of chemicals together and seeing what would happen (sometimes with disastrous, though thankfully never fatal, results.) muffin making feels that liberating-this is what happened...

i nearly followed nigellas recipe for banana butterscotch muffins in nigella express except i only had one egg and no butterscotch. i substituted raspberries instead of the butterscotch and halved the recipe. they were lovely but esme doesn't like bananas and this was not disguise enough so my adventure continues after the recipe:

1 and a half ripe bananas

125ml vegetable oil

an egg

125g flour

50g caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

few handfuls of raspberries

preheat the oven to 200 C/ gas mark 6 and set out 6 muffin papers in a muffin tin

mash the bananas

pour the oil into a jug and beat in the egg

put flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a bowl and then mix in the oil/egg and the bananas

add the raspberries

spoon into cases and cook for 20 minutes

they worked beautifully and were made mostly by esme and elsie who were thrilled by the lack of instructions limited only to the mantra that 'lumpy is good'

so, to muffins with no bananas. my thinking was that the banana might need to be replaced with something to help keep the muffins moist. i used the recipe above with no bananas and a good dollop of greek yogurt and threw in some white and dark chocolate callets. they worked! succulent, tasty and risen to perfection. i had taken my first small muffin step away from nigella and into my own kitchen of creativity...

last night i invented the lemon zest and honey muffins. i discarded the recipe and roughly estimated the same ingredients as my original banana and raspberry muffin minus the bananas and raspberries. i added a dollop of creme fraiche (because it's what was in the fridge), a large spoon of honey, zest of one un-waxed lemon and the juice of half a lemon squeezed. I then sprinkled lemon zest and brown sugar on the top.

i held my breath as the lumpy mixture entered the oven...and about 20 minutes later -perfection! is this now my own recipe? have i let go of nigella's comfortingly warm and reassuring hand and started on a journey of my own?