The high season may be over, but there are still recipes to perfect, customers to chat to and parlours to prettify, writes Kieran Murphy

In the world of ice cream, summer passes in a blur of intense activity. Then, suddenly, it is gone. August comes to an end, the kids return to school, the adults to the cities and their jobs, and quiet descends on Dingle.

People, of course, continue eating ice cream all year around, but the number of visitors to Kerry falls off sharply in September. Killarney is less seasonal than Dingle, but even there our shop will feel tranquil in comparison to June, July and August.

Most of our staff head away to their respective colleges, and those who remain delight in the easy tempo of an off-season dessert house. A steady stream of ice cream and coffee lovers will continue to visit Murphys Ice Cream, happy to finally find a table and be able to linger over a dessert or a cappuccino.

For my brother and I, time opens up. Days expand, and most tasks seem a doddle compared to the high-powered pace of the previous weeks.

We can catch up on paperwork and enjoy uninterrupted conversations with customers. We can drive to the beach. We can reconnect with friends and family, and switch to play mode.

We play with new flavours, with ideas for next year, with plans for travel and inspiration, and we play around with improving the shops. Playing keeps the business alive for us as well as for our clientele. Ice cream, after all, should be fun.

This autumn, there's also the matter of writing a Murphys Ice Cream cookbook, due out next spring through Mercier Press. Sean, myself and the production team will spend days debating subtleties of technique and flavour while we compile a list of recipes we love. We will tweak, test, photograph and immerse ourselves in our favourite subjects - ice cream, coffee, and chocolate.

The importance of milk temperature in making a good latte (not too hot!), the right amount of espresso for an affogato, the best way to make rum raisin, how to whip off a perfectly glossy fudge sauce and, of course, presenting each creation to our customers for their opinions - I can hardly wait.

Finally, we will use the off-season for sourcing and tasting new products. Chocolates always rate high on this list, although with so many quality Irish treats from Skelligs, Lorge, Cocoa Bean and Áine's packing our shelves, there's not much room for more.

There's even less if we expand our range of Valrhona from France, and we are very likely to do so, because we believe it is the best-tasting chocolate in the world.

We're lucky in that our own distributor, Odaios Foods, also happens to be the Valrhona importer and supplies us along with gourmet shops and restaurants around Ireland.

We adore Valrhona not only for a gourmet snack but for cooking as well.

We suggest anyone who loves baking or dessert-making experiment with the Valrhona range of bars, as each is so different and distinctive. We already have a stack set aside. Let the fun begin!

For a list of Valrhona stockists, see icecreamireland.com

Gourmet Chocolate Crust

This is a simple way of enjoying great quality chocolate. It is designed to form an unsweetened hard crust on ice cream, and I suggest vanilla, so you don't have competing flavours. The butter is simply to make the chocolate less brittle.

Ingredients

100g high quality, dark chocolate;

10g (2 tsp) unsalted butter

What to do

1 Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler or microwave;

2 Stir until fully combined;

3 Pour over vanilla ice cream;

4 Enjoy!

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