CROSSOGUE PRESERVES:In September Veronica Molloy, the Tipperary grandmother who is also the business dynamo behind Crossogue Preserves, is taking her jam and preserve-making skills to Africa.
She'll be teaching Tanzanian women how use local fruits to make a range of jams to sell and generate income. Kenyan-born Molloy speaks some Swahili, and her jam-making skills are legendary, but she will have to adapt her recipes. "Sugar won't be a problem to get hold of, but I'll have to teach them how to make their own pectin using lemons."
There are more than 100 sweet and savoury products in the Crossogue Preserves range, many of them based on family recipes, and it sells in London and Brussels as well as throughout Ireland. All-natural ingredients are used, and where possible they are grown or produced on the Molloy family farm in Ballycahill, near Thurles. In the midst of preparing for her African adventure, which she is undertaking with the help of Playing For Life, the charity founded by sports presenter Tracy Piggott, Molloy recently received news that five of her products had been awarded golds in the 2007 Great Taste awards.
Irish Coffee Curd (€4.60/250g), the newest addition to the Crossogue stable, was launched on St Patrick's Day. It's a sweet treat that can be spread on toast, eaten with ice-cream, or melted on top of pancakes. It can also be stirred through natural yoghurt, cream or creme fraiche. "A customer rang to say she had used it as a filling for a coffee and walnut cake and it was to die for," Molloy says. Free-range eggs, sugar, Irish whiskey and coffee are the ingredients. Irish coffee curd joins the lemon, orange, lime, blueberry and award-winning apricot varieties already made by Crossogue Preserves. The jar will keep for two weeks in the fridge once opened. Crossogue Preserves will have a trade stand at next week's Dublin Horse Show, with tasters available to visitors.