Award-winning Cork chocolatier: Do what you love and it will shine through

THERE’S an oft-cited passage written by Marcel Proust in Remembrance Of Things Past, where the author dips a freshly-baked Madeline – a small, shell-like soft buttery sponge cake – into a cup of tea and, in that moment, is magically transported to a childhood memory.

It’s a much-loved passage and from it was coined the term ‘Madeline Moment’ to refer to an encounter with a food, taste or aroma that triggers a happy and contented memory.

Upon the counter of Norma Kelly’s Praline Pastry & Chocolate Shop in Mitchelstown is a sweetie jar full of golden Madeleines. It’s encouraging to see how often people ask for one to go with their tea or coffee to go. There will have to be a new batch freshly-baked ready for tomorrow morning at this rate, and I wonder how many of these customers will have a magical moment of their own walking back to their car or returning to work.

Reverie over! I’m with the café’s owner, pastry chef and chocolatier, Norma Kelly. We’re on the sunny side of Lower Cork Street, the main road channelling through the heart of Mitchelstown.

This has been the new home of Praline since December, but Norma has been happily trading in sweet treats, cakes and truffles since first opening away from the town centre in 2017. But it is this new vision for Praline that has put a smile of Norma’s face – she is back doing what she loves, and what she always has done, even since she was a small child.

“My mam always baked at home. She’d give me a bit of pastry and a rolling pin, and I’d just roll it and roll it, flip it over and roll it again. 

Mam would put a bit of jam in the centre and then bake it in the oven alongside her apple tart.

“My grandmother always baked as well, jams in the cupboard, that sort of thing. From a very young age, I always did that with mam and my grandmother.”

Norma attended culinary school at DIT’s Cathal Brugha Street, attaining a degree in Culinary Arts with a Pastry Major. She followed this up immediately with a Masters in Food Product Development and Culinary Innovation, but the chance to compete in a chocolate competition was the catalyst for discovering the chocolatier’s craft.

“In 2015, I was asked if I would go in for the Cacao Barry World Chocolate Masters for the UK and Irish heat. I said yes, why not, I was only going to learn from it anyway.”

While experimenting with chocolate and developing her skills for the competition, Norma began to learn more about chocolate and how to work with it, and took on courses with leading Chocolate Master, Ruth Hinks, of Cocoa Black in the UK.

“Ruth runs a lot of courses bringing in international chocolate and pastry chefs. I’ve done every course that could be done there; I just really enjoyed working with it,” says Norma.

“People ask which I prefer, chocolate or pastry? Two years ago, I would have said chocolate, but now I find I do it for so long then jump back into pastry for a bit, and then I’ll want to go back to chocolate again. 

I like the variety of both.

Taking part in this and other culinary competitions made Norma stand out to her lecturers and, while in the throes of completing her masters, she was asked if she would like to take up a part time lecturing role. It was a decision that led to Norma teaching at DIT for a decade. In 2017, she came back to Cork and Mitchelstown to set up her own business. The first iteration was hard and stressful.

“I wanted to do everything myself, and didn’t know how to delegate,” recalls Norma.

“When we started the business in the old location, we were doing hot lunches, but I was never comfortable because it wasn’t my area of expertise, and we didn’t really have the space.

“When I started out, I said yes to people asking me to do all sorts of different things because I didn’t want to say no to anything. But it suddenly snowballs into things that you don’t want to do, and all of a sudden, you’re not really comfortable with that.”

When Covid came along, it gave Norma the space to rejig her offering and get back to what she loved doing the most: pastry and chocolate.

“I had time to sort the wood from the trees and decide what I really liked doing. Funnily enough, my customers were on board with the changes because they could see I was enjoying what I was doing, and my own personality came out better because I wasn’t getting stressed about things I wasn’t happy doing.”

The old space is still in use, but now it’s a coffee dock, a collection point for online orders, and Norma’s main production kitchen.

Inside the bright, airy space of the new café, the focal points are the duo of cabinets housing beautiful patisserie and chocolates – dainties that wouldn’t look out of place in France.

“I always wanted to be downtown. One of the things I learned the hard way was it’s all about location. That was a big issue [in the original café], a lack of footfall, but we built it up.

“Then, when we opened here, I wanted to do moulded chocolates and have them on display for customers to pick out their own. 

So, we established the chocolate counter alongside the pastry counter.

Different to the original café, Praline Pastry & Chocolate Shop is all about dessert! Some savoury options are available (freshly made sandwiches, flaky pastry sausage rolls, and a vegetable soup), but the heart and soul of the experience here is ogling at the sweet counter and trying to decide which goodies to select.

“We definitely say here to do what you love, and it will shine through,” says Norma, and if the shine she is referring to is the mirror glaze adorning the patisserie or the expertly tempered chocolate, there must be a lot of love in the room at Praline!

The reception for the new location has been great, say Norma, adding that an unexpected bonus of moving to the main street is being found by tourists passing through on their way to the Galtees.

“We notice a lot more tourists now this time of year than we would have before; people dropping into us as they’re passing through Mitchelstown.

That’s how word gets out beyond the local area and I’m looking forward to the summer because of it.

There’s never a great time to expand a hospitality business, and given the wider economic backdrop for food businesses, some might wonder what Norma Kelly is thinking.

But while it might never be a great time, it was the right time for the business, she says.

“It’s been in my head a couple of years. The last business we were six and a half years in, and it was in a good financial position for us to take on something new. We needed to be on main street, and this was probably one of the best units to be in.

“I didn’t even think about the backdrop of price increases, and of course chocolate prices have gone bananas now – thank God I didn’t know any of that was coming! I just decided to go for it. We got the keys in August, and we opened December 1 in time for the festive season. We’re six months in now and I feel like I’m starting to settle into the new routine.”

Quality is all at Praline. Base chocolate that is melted for tempering is sourced from Cacao Barry, a premium sustainable base with a higher percentage of chocolate.

Wherever possible, chocolates are flavoured with other local producers which means there is a truffle flavoured with Knockmealdown Stout from Eight Degrees Brewing down the road, a Honey and Orange fondant made with Galtee Honey, and a Salted Caramel flavoured with Irish Atlantic Sea Salt from the Beara Peninsula in West Cork.

In recent years, Norma has also picked up awards from Blas na hÉireann: a silver for the Chocolate Fudge Cake, and a gold in 2019 for the signature Praline Opera Cake, a classic opera cake but with a twist of praline-spiked buttercream and freshly brewed coffee.

Of course, customer tastes will always hold significant sway over what is placed on the counter.

“I used to play around a lot at the start, but people would come in looking for the Mango & Passionfruit Cheesecake, or Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse.

“When you go somewhere with your mind fixed on having a certain thing with a cup of coffee, I don’t want to change things too much! 

A lot of the cakes we have had since the start, and they are best-sellers.

I’m sure you’re wondering – what are the bestsellers?

“For pastry, it’s our Chocolate & Hazelnut Mousse, the Tiramisu (that’s my favourite, too, actually), and the Mango & Passionfruit Cheesecake. Chocolates then, it’s our Salted Caramel and the Mint Chocolate – the classics!”

Norma is passionate about pastry and chocolate, and it has gifted her plenty of amazing opportunities throughout her career in terms of study, travel, and creating a business she is proud of. Her one hope is that more people would consider pastry as a career.

“I’d encourage anyone to do it. We will be involved in Open Kitchen again with the Chef Network this November. It gives people a chance to come and try it out. If you like it, you’re interested in it and you become good at it, you’ll never be out of a job. It’s a very rewarding business to be in, and you get to make people happy!”

This summer, Norma will be releasing details of some pastry and chocolate making classes in Mitchelstown for the autumn. In the meantime, pop into the café or browse the online shop for everything from truffles to afternoon tea!

And if the Madeleine jar is full, be sure to ask for one. See www.praline.ie