But, I've cleared several levels in the game of life, baking-wise, and I've progressed beyond cake mix when making a birthday dessert for someone. If I can, I'm going to make it from scratch. Settle in, dear blog readers, as I embark on a quest to create a Boston cream pie worthy of my serious, cynical, funny, meticulous, caring, science-loving, occasionally petty, mostly awesome brother.
Level 1: Make pastry cream.
I trust Dorie Greenspan more than any other cookbook writer/chef. Her recipes have never let me down. I own two of her cookbooks, Baking: From My Home to Yours and Around My French Table. I've used Baking way, way more than the other book, but everything I've made has been delicious so far. Given my current transient state (most of my stuff is in storage!) both cookbooks are packed away somewhere, so I had to go searching online to find her pastry cream recipe. Thankfully, there are many, many Dorie devotees online, who love her as much as I do. I started by boiling two cups of whole milk.
While the milk boiled, I cracked six large eggs and put their yolks in a bowl with sugar and cornstarch, mixing them together until I had a thick yellow paste.
I have a major aversion to making custard, because I hate getting little bits of cooked egg in my custard after adding the hot milk to the egg mixture. I trust Dorie though, so I did as she said and splashed about 1/4 cup of the hot milk into the egg mixture and whisked it like crazy, tempering the custard. After that, I gradually added the milk in 1/4-cup doses, whisking furiously after each addition. When I was finished adding the milk, I had a really foamy liquid that I put on the stove so that it could thicken. This part was surprisingly fast, I think because I used whole milk. Whenever I use anything but whole milk, things always take longer to thicken.
I whisked the liquid like crazy, so it wouldn't burn or get any dreaded eggy bits in it. It thickened into custard in about one minute, maybe less. I took it off the heat and added vanilla bean paste, stirring it in.
I let the custard sit for five minutes and then added a little butter, whisking it in.
Y'all, it was sooo rich! And creamy! Dorie is such an ace.
Vanilla pastry cream
from Dorie Greenspan via Confessions of a Tart
(makes about 2 cups)
Bring 2 cups whole milk to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat. While the milk boils, whisk 6 egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/3 cup cornstarch until you've formed a thick, yellow paste. When the milk boils, splash in about 1/4 cup of the milk into the egg mixture, whisking vigorously in order to avoid having any cooked egg in the custard. Continuously whisking, add the milk in by the 1/4-cupful. When all of the milk is incorporated and the mixture is foamy, return the mixture to a medium-sized saucepan and bring it to a boil. Whisk the custard constantly, to keep the custard from burning on the bottom or getting small bits of cooked egg in the custard. The custard will begin to boil fairly quickly--let it boil for a 1 minute or so, until the custard has thickened.
Take the custard off the heat and add 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, whisking it in. Let the custard sit for five minutes and then whisk in 3 1/2 tbsp butter. Scrape the custard into a bowl and place plastic wrap over the custard, pressing it into the custard so that a skin doesn't form on top. Refrigerate it for at least two hours before using it.
Level 2: Make yellow cake.
There are so many yellow cake recipes out there, but I've found many of them to be disappointing and kinda wasteful for what you get. EIGHT egg yolks?? Are you joking with that? Maybe if I had some angel food cake to make right after and needed the egg yolks, but man! I'd already sacrificed six egg yolks to the custard and I didn't feel right using only half of eight more eggs.
I searched high and low for a good yellow cake recipe and guess what? The Brits are lousy with them! But you wouldn't know it, because the crafty devils call it "Victoria Sponge." Hmph. Even worse, they don't slather it with chocolate buttercream like any DECENT American normally will do. They use eat their cake with jam. JAM!
Ok, fine. That sounds perfectly delightful. I'm just worked up because I feel like put one over on me with the "sponge" misnomer. To get my recipe, I turned to Nigella Lawson, who is my second favorite cookbook/TV chef. Her book, Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, has the best chocolate cake recipes. I've made almost every one of them as birthday cakes for other people and they've loved them. My favorite has been the honey chocolate cake. For the Victoria sponge, or as we Yanks call it, for the yellow cake, I pulled a recipe from Nigella's How to Eat. It's so, so easy. You just blitz everything in a food processor and it turns out a truly delicious batter. If you don't have a processor, no worries. I've included standard mixer directions too.
Victoria sponge cake (yellow cake)
(makes 2 8-inch layers)
from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two 8-inch cake pans with plenty of butter. I might even dust the pan with a little flour too, just for extra insurance.
In the bowl of a food processor, place 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar, 2 sticks (1 cup) softened unsalted butter, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste, which is what I used), and 4 eggs. Process the mixture until you have a delicious, kinda thick batter. Pour 2-3 tbsp milk in the batter and process it until it thins out just a bit. Nigella says that you'll batter of a "soft, dropping consistency." Which, is less and less appetizing, the more I think about it.
**If you use your mixer, stir together the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder in a small bowl. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until it's pale and creamy. Add the vanilla extract and then add the eggs one at a time, beating them into the batter thoroughly after each egg is added. Pour the dry ingredients in and beat it in at a low speed. I usually add the flour in thirds, so I don't get a ton of flour in my face when I turn the mixer on. Beat in the milk.**
Pour the batter into your prepared pans and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake. Take the cake out of the oven and let it sit on the counter in the pans for a few minutes, then flip the layers onto a rack (or plate) to let it finish cooling.
Level 3: Make chocolate ganache.
Ganache is the easy bit. It's chopped chocolate with scalded hot cream poured over it. Use whatever kind of chocolate you like. My brother loves dark chocolate, but he also loves sweet desserts, so that why I used a mix of Ghiradelli Twilight (72% cacao), Trader Joe's 72% dark chocolate, and one cup of Hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Chocolate ganache
(makes about 1 1/2 - 2 cups)
Place 8-9 oz roughly chopped chocolate in a medium-sized heatproof bowl. Heat 1 cup heavy whipping cream to just under a boil. You want bubbles forming, but no violent motion. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let it sit for about 1 minute. Stir the chocolate and cream around until the chocolate is completely melted.
Level 4: Construct the pie.
(Side mission: Try not to lose your sanity while constructing the pie.)
BIG SIGH. Each component tasted amazing, just like a dream. My first issue came up when I had crazy problems getting the cake out of the pan. I had to make do with my mom's pans, and so I chose a big 10-inch by 10-inch one, which just didn't work out. I don't think I greased it enough. I end up halving the cake and splitting those halves, to make some decent-sized layers.
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| I tried to flip it onto my mom's fish grilling rack, and that did NOT work. |
The custard looked a little too solid so I made some whipped cream and folded it into the custard.
It tasted great. But when I slathered the custard cream onto the cake, like so:
The custard didn't act so much like mortar holding my cake bricks together. Instead, they kinda just slid around all over the place.
Delicious, but messy. I thought that if I rotated the cake 90 degrees, then poured the ganache over top, the ganache might act like a kind of delicious adhesive that would keep the whole thing together.
Not my best work ever. But I stuck it in the fridge to harden the ganache and sent up a little prayer to Dorie, Nigella, and all the other Goddesses of Pastry and Baked Goods. And you know what? We ate my brother's Boston cream pie at 1am after he'd traveled to my parents' house, and even though the cake itself was a little monstrous looking, the individual pieces were pretty. A bonus of my technique was that a layer of ganache formed in between the middle layer, so there was extra chocolate.
People, I'm calling this a win. The people I love loved it and that's really all I gotta care about at the end of the day.
*I'll be posting the recipes for the pastry cream, ganache, and yellow cake separately throughout the week, just in case that's more convenient for you all. I mean, I can see the need for a ganache recipe without needing to make pastry cream and cake at same time.
3 comments:
Hi hi! Why do you use vanilla paste? Is there any notable difference between that and extract? Also, I know you had issues with the cake sticking, but if everything had gone as planned, what would the construction have been like? Still pastry cream as filling, chocolate on top?
I use the vanilla paste because I think it has a better vanilla taste and also because it leaves little specks of vanilla bean in whatever you cook, so, you know. *Extra* fancy.
I think next time, I wouldn't fold the whipped cream into the custard (or I'd fold maybe 1/4 cup instead of a whole cup of it in). That would probably have kept my cake/pie from falling over. I'd still use the pastry cream as filling (and I think I'd prefer two thicker layers of cake to four thin slabs) and would pour the chocolate on top. Of course, a ganache layer between the cake and pastry cream would probably be an excellent idea too.
This looks amazing!
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