Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

I went to Costco this week and came upon a magazine titled " Cupcakes, 150 sweet recipes". Needless to say I just had to have it. I came home and showed it to Dear Husband, who immediately  chose Boston Cream Pie Cupcake- you can take a man out of Boston but you can't take Boston out the man! So I very happily complied and made it as our weekend treat- it takes us several days to eat anything since it's just the two of us, we start to eat a dessert on Saturday and it pretty much lasts all week. 

The final product was good, but I think I overcooked the filling, it was too much like pudding, I will try and get it to be creamier next time. 

Vanilla Cupcakes- the base for the Boston Cream Pies

1/2 cup butter- at room temperature

1 egg- at room temperature

2 egg yolks- at room temperature

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup whipping cream

1. Allow butter, egg, and egg yolks to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, line twelve 2 1/2-inch muffin cups with paper bake cups. If using vanilla bean, use small knife to scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean; set seeds aside. In a small bowl stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. 

2. Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, beating on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape sides of the bowl. Add egg, egg yolks, vanilla bean seeds ( or the 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract), and the 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract; beat until combined. Alternately add flour mixture and whipping cream to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined ( batter will be thick). 

3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each about three-fourths full. Use the back of a spoon to smooth out batter in cups. 

4. Bake about 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in muffin cups on wire racks for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from muffin cups. Cool completely on wire racks.

Boston Cream Pies

3 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/3 cups milk

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

12 vanilla cupcakes

1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces

1/2 cup whipping cream

1. For vanilla cream, in a small bowl lightly beat egg yolks; set aside. In a medium saucepan combine sugar and cornstarch. Whisk in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 2 more minutes. 

2. Gradually ad about 1 cup of the hot mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return all of the mixture to the saucepan. Cook and stir until bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in butter until melted. Stir in vanilla. Cover surface with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours. 

3. To assemble, using a serrated knife, cut each Vanilla Cupcake horizontally in half. Spoon 1 heaping tablespoon of the vanilla cream onto the cut side of each cupcake bottom. Replace cupcake tops. Place cupcake on a wire rack set over waxed paper - or you can be lazy like me and set it straight on the serving platter- it gets a little messy but it works. 

4. For ganache, melt  chocolate chips and cream on a double boiler, over medium heat, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.

5. Spoon ganache over cupcakes. Let stand just until chocolate is set. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

Satisfying but not too sweet, cream needs to be cooked less in order to be creamier.

They were excellent with ice-cream.

Fresh Strawberry Pie

Strawberry is by far my favorite fruit, I love how versatile it is. One can make smoothies, pies, ice-creams, cakes, cupcakes...the possibilities are endless. I tried this new recipe this past weekend and was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out, just sweet enough, smooth texture, yum! It's a keeper for sure. 

Ingredients: 

- 1/2 package refrigerated pie crust, or your favorite homemade recipe

- 1 cup sugar

- 5 tablespoons cornstarch

- 7 ounces ( about 1 cup) Sprite

- 1 quart sliced strawberries

Directions: 

Place dough in a pie plate, removing excess edge and poking holes on it with a fork to prevent it from rising. Bake it in a pre-heated, 425F oven for about 13-14 minutes, until browned.

For the filling, blend sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan; add Sprite and cook stirring until smooth and thick. You can add red food coloring if desired, I did and it looked great! Add strawberries and cook for five minutes. Pour into cooled pie shell and cool. Top with whipped cream.

Fresh strawberry pie, easy and delicious!

Fresh strawberry pie and premium vanilla ice cream. Oh So Sweet!

Premium Vanilla Ice Cream

Readers be warned: this is an extremely rich and sweet ice-cream!!! Eat at your own risk! Dear Husband swears it's just like Amy's, if you are from Austin, TX you know what he means!

Ingredients: 

3 cups heavy cream

1 whole vanilla bean

2 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

Directions: 

Put cream in a medium saucepan. With a sharp knife split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Use the blunt edge to scrape out the "seeds". Stir the seeds and bean pod into the cream, bring it to a slow boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer it for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Combine the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar in a medium bowl. Mix it on medium speed until the mixture is thick, smooth and pale yellow in color, about 2 minutes.

Remove the vanilla bean pod from the cream. Pour out 1 cup of hot liquid. With the mixer on low speed, add the cup of hot cream to the egg mixture on slow steady stream. When thoroughly combined, pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and stir to combine. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium low heat until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Strain it into a bowl, cover with a sheet of plastic wrap placed directly on the custard, and chill completely. 

Turn your ice-cream machine on, pour the chilled custard into the freezer bowl and let mix until thickened, about 25-30 minutes. 

Transfer the ice cream into a bowl with a lid on, put it in the freezer for hardening, about 4-6 hours depending on the freezer's temperature. 

Premium vanilla ice cream being served with strawberry pie.

Vanilla bean- it can be found in the spice aisle of your grocery store, or online. Or you might have a great mother-in-law who travels to Mexico and brings back all sorts of fabulous gourmet foods :-)

Scraping out the seeds.

What the seeds look like after being removed from the pod.

Vanilla seeds, bean and cream simmering.

Pouring the soon-to-be ice cream into the machine.

Scooping out the ice cream onto a container, ready to go into the freezer for hardening.

Oatmeal-Cranberry Cookies

On Friday our Relay for Life ( to fight against cancer) team at school ( well, work for me, as I am a teacher) is hosting a fundraiser, where we will be selling a taco salad with dessert, and all the proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society. I volunteered to bake the desserts, as this is something I enjoy. I will bring these cookies, chocolate-caramel cake and coconut cream pie, which I will bake tomorrow night. I couple of friends stopped by while I was baking the cookies, they tried them and said they were delicious! I certainly think so :-)

This recipe yields about 3 dozen cookies. 

Ingredients:

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon table salt

- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

- 1 cup sugar

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 3 cups oats ( not instant)

- 1 cup dried cranberries ( or raisins)

- 6 oz. good-quality white chocolate chips

Directions: 

Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl, set aside. 

Cream butter, both sugars, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl with a mixer until light and fluffy( about 5 minutes). Add flour mixture, stir until completely blended. 

Fold the oats ( by hand, do not use mixer), cranberries, and white chocolate into the dough until evenly distributed. 

Drop the dough into 3 tablespoons mounds ( a #40 cookie scoop if you have one) onto baking sheets covered with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. 

Bake for 11-13, or until golden but still a little moist. Let cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack. 

Enjoy!!!

Fresh out of the oven, notice the parchment paper lining the baking sheet.

If you forget to soften your butter before hand, like I did, just beat it with a rolling pin about three times, then turn it over and repeat on all sides about five times.

Great stress reliever!

When the butter/sugar mixture is ready it will lighten in color and drip easily. You should not see any pieces of butter.

Folding in the oats, add cup by cup and fold in gently.

My favorite part- the chocolate! Make sure it's real chocolate, not almond bark.

It will be hard to mix it at this point, be patient and gentle.

Strawberries-and-Cream Cake

I love baking cakes but do not know how to decorate them at all. As a matter of fact I am quite terrible at doing things by hand, it's a combination of lack of skill and patience that really gets my projects to turn out quite ugly. Where I am getting at is I was helping to plan this baby shower for a very dear friend and she had requested a strawberries-and-cream cake, a Brazilian version of Strawberry Shortcake. I knew how to bake the cake, but not how to decorate it. So we came up with an idea: wrap the cake in foil and place the individual cakes inside a beautifully decorate box ( made by another friend, not by me obviously). It's not a novel idea, this used to be quite common in Brazil back when we were kids, as it makes it very easy to serve. 

The cake turned out well, but next time I must cut smaller slices and give it some thought before-hand on how to neatly wrap them in the foil, as my wrapping technique ( or lack thereof I should say) did not turn out so well, the pieces were quite chunky and made for a terrible presentation. I bought the foil already pre-cut, but I think next time I will custom-cut them to get to the right size. 

For this event I baked 3 cakes, used 5lbs. of strawberries and almost 2 quarts of heavy cream. Each cake yielded 12 very generous pieces.

Ingredients for the cake: 

- 2 cups of flour

- 2 cups of sugar

- 1 cup of milk, boiling ( I microwaved it on high for 2 minutes)

- 1 tablespoon baking powder

- 4 eggs

Directions:

-Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease and flour 9x13  pan.

-In a mixer, beat the egg whites with the wire whip until they are stiff. Switch to a flat beater, add the sugar and then the yolks, beating constantly on medium speed.

-Next add the flour and baking soda, on low speed. Remove the bowl from the mixer, add the boiling milk and gently stir it by hand. 

Ingredients for the filling: 

- 1 1/2 lbs. of strawberries

- 1/2 cup of sugar

- 1 bottle of cream-soda

-  1/2 cup of rum

- 2 cups heavy cream

- another 1/2 cup of sugar

- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Directions: 

- Mix the cream soda and the rum, set aside.

- Clean strawberries, removing stem and leaves, dice them in small bite-size pieces, place them in a bowl with 1/2 cup of sugar and let it marinate in the fridge for several hours.

- For the whipped cream, beat heavy cream, sugar and vanilla until very stiff.

Assembling the cake: 

Carefully cut the cake in half with a bread knife. Remove the top half of the cake. Poke holes in the bottom half of the cake with a knife and drizzle cream-soda/rum mix on it. Next place a generous layer of strawberries, and add the fresh whipped-cream on top, using an angled spatula to spread it. Carefully place the top half of the cake on top. To cut, grease your bread knife with cooking spray, it really makes life much easier.

Five lbs. of strawberries, diced and marinated in sugar.

The egg whites still not ready, still too runny.

Now the eggs whites are stiff and ready.

Adding the sugar.

Adding the yolks.

Adding the flour, slowly, spoonful by spoonful.

Gently adding the steaming milk.

Carefully stirring by hand after adding the milk.

Cutting the cake in half.

With the strawberries on.

Topped with fresh whipped cream.

With the top half on.

Cake cut, ready to be wrapped and served.

Chocolate Lollipops

I came upon this recipe a few months ago in the social site Orkut, and made it for my niece's birthday back in October. It is very labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it's Oh So Good! Because it was cold back then, I did not have any problems working with the chocolate. This time, however, it was quite warm, and the chocolate was melting faster than our production line was moving, resulting in a few casualties. If anybody out there has any great tips on how to work with chocolate in warm weather please let me know! This is Texas after all and I've got to figure this one out. 

These particular pops were made for a dear friend's baby shower, and were one of many delicious treats available to all the wonderful ladies who attended the event.

Ingredients: 

Brigadeiro ( see recipe below)- I used two batches

Maria cookies- I used 3 packets for the two batches of brigadeiro, and it yielded 32 pops. You can easily find these cookies in the Hispanic section of your grocery store.

Good-quality candy-coating milk chocolate

Popsicle sticks

Cellophane paper

Ribbon

Directions: 

1. Make the brigadeiro and let it cool completely

2. Using a butter knife, very carefully spread the brigadeiro in a Maria cookie, place the popsicle stick in the brigadeiro, and close it with another cookie, like a sandwich. Prepare all the pops before proceeding to step four.

3. On a double-boiler, melt the chocolate and, using an angled spatula, completely cover pop making sure to remove any excess chocolate. 

4. Spread chocolate sprinkles all over the pop. Place pop in styrofoam to dry.

Brigadeiro: 

In a saucepan, place 1 can of condensed milk, 1/2 can of milk, and 1/2 cup of chocolate powder ( I always use Nesquick). Over medium-high heat, stir constantly until mixture is thick, bubbly and removes easily from the pan, about 30 minutes. Place on a greased plate.

Displayed at the baby shower.

Spreading the brigadeiro on the Maria cookie.

Closing the pop with the second cookie. It is now ready to be covered with chocolate.

Spreading melted chocolate.

With the jimmies on, drying.

The table where they were displayed.

Tiramisu

Last weekend was Valentine's Day and we had a small party with some great friends. Because Italy is considered romantic, we chose it as our theme. It was potluck-style as usual, and I brought creamy-tomato sauce, homemade Italian loaf, and Tiramisu. The latest is one of the few desserts Dear Husband actually likes, as he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. 

I tried this new recipe and thought it came out good, but next time I will use half Kahlua and half coffee to dip the ladyfingers in, I used Kahlua only and it was quite strong, way too strong for Dear Husband and I anyways, as we are not big drinkers. 

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 egg yolks

3/4 cups sugar

2/3 cups half-and-half

1 lbs. mascarpone cheese

9 oz. ladyfingers

1 1/2 cups Kahlua

Chocolate Curls

Directions: 

1. In a large bowl, combine cream and vanilla. Beat at medium-high speed with an electric mixer until whipped. Set aside. 

2. In a large saucepan, whisk together, egg yolks, sugar,and half-and-half. Bring just to a boil, whisking constantly. Mixture will get foamy and then thicken. Remove from heat, and whisk in mascarpone cheese. Fold in whipped-cream mixture. 

3. In a (3-quart) trifle dish, spread 1/2 cup custard on the bottom of the dish. Dip ladyfingers in liqueur. Place them flat in a single layer over custard. Spread ladyfinger layer with 1 cup custard. Repeat for a second layer. 

4. Repeat flat layers with remaining ingredients, ending with custard. Top custard with chocolate curls. 

Note: To make chocolate curls: unwrap a thick rectangular-shaped chocolate bar, and heat in microwave on medium-high just until soft, about 10 seconds. Using a Y-shaped vegetable peeler, peel down the sides of chocolate to form curl.

                               Big bowl of deliciousness!

                               Adding the mascarpone into the custard.

Curling the chocolate, use your vegetable peeler and warm the chocolate slightly in the microwave.

Dipping the ladyfinger, a few seconds each side is enough. You want them to be soft but not gooey.

Layering the custard and the ladyfingers. Be sure to start and end with the custard.

Adding some powdered chocolate for extra flavor.

Almond Joy Cake

I have a ladie's game night to go tomorrow, and it's a potluck so I decided to bring one of my favorite cakes, Almond Joy. I had actually never made it, but I always eat it when my co-worker Robin brings it to school. Actually, I got the recipe and ingredients from Robin at our last game night ( different group)! But I knid of wish I hadn't found out what's on the cake, because now that I know I will have to eat less of it LOL...no wonder it's so tasty, it's horrible for you! But I guess it's OK as an every-once-in-awhile treat. 

- 1 box of chocolate cake mix with pudding. Mix and bake on a 17 1/2 X 11 1/2 pan( I know it's HUGE!) according to package directions

Filling ( or 1st layer if you will)

- 1 c. evaporated ( not condensed) milk

- 1 c. sugar

- 24 large marshmallows

- 14oz. bag shredded, sweetened coconut

In a pan, combine milk and sugar. Add marshmallows and heat until melted. Add coconut and pour over the hot cake, spreading to cover the entire surface of the cake. 

Topping ( or 2nd layer)

- 1 1/2 c. of sugar

- 1/2 cup evaporated milk ( the rest of the can)

- 1 stick of  butter

 - 6 oz. bag of chocolate chips ( 1 1/2 cup)

- 1 small bag of sliced almonds

In a pan, combine sugar, milk and margarine, bring it to a boil. Add chocolate chips and stir until melted. Add almonds or save for top of cake ( I saved mine). Pour over warm cake and spread. Store in the refrigerator. Robin tells me it freezes well!

 The final product, I hope my Brazilian friends like this very American cake!

 Evaporated milk, sugar and marshmallows ready to be melted together.

                        It gets so light and fluffy, a lot of fun to stir!

I did not realize how much space melted marshmallow take, it almost went out of the pan. I had to remove it to another container in order to be able to add the coconut. Next time I will use my biggest pasta pot!

                                   With the first layer on.

Creme Brulee

Creme brulee is of these things that sounds so hard, impressive and intimidating one almost doesn't want to reveal how easy it really is. I made it tonight for the first time and it came out divine! Dear Husband has been wanting it for a long time, and I finally got around to getting a torch. I actually got the torch as a Christmas  to Dear Husband, the idea being that he would be making it. But I ended up in the kitchen and am sure glad I did.

We tried topping it with brown sugar and white sugar, and I have to say the white sugar is easier to work with and it looks prettier after melted. 

We used the recipe it came with the torch, it was great but it could use a little more sugar (!). Also, I did not have any vanilla beans on hand so I substituted it with 1 tablespoon good vanilla extract instead. I will be ordering some beans tonight for next time. 

Ingredients: 

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vanilla bean (split)

3 egg yolks

1 whole egg

1/4 cup sugar

Sugar for topping

Cut up fruit or berries

Directions: 

1. Combine heavy cream, milk and vanilla bean. Heat to boil. Remove from heat and steep 10 minutes with vanilla bean. Scrape seeds into the milk mixture. 

2. With an electric mixer, combine eggs and sugar. Add the milk mixture in a steady stream. Strain mixture through a fine strainer. Skim foam. 

3. Divide into 4 small ramekins ( mine were really small so I used 6) set in baking dish and pour enough water around ramekins to come 1/2 up the sides. Place in 325F oven for approximately 25-30 minutes, until just set ( trembles slightly). 

4. Cover top with sugar. Caramelize the tops with torch.

                           The final product.

                            Simple ingredients from your pantry.

                            Separating the eggs.

                            Slowly streaming the milk.

                            Straining it.

                            Skimming the foam.

                            Carefully pouring it into ramekins.

                            Very slowly placing it into the oven.

                             With sugar on top, ready to be caramelized.

                            Torch in action.

                            Burned sugar makes the house smell great!