Boston Cream Pie with a twist

I just love Boston Cream Pie. It's soft sponge is filled with creamy custard that melts in your mouth. If this is not good enough this flavour overload is enhanced by a topping of fabulous chocolate ganach. It is a cake of dreams and begs to be eaten alone so that you can sigh over every mouthful.

The twist? Use rum to flavour the cream.

To start you will make a light crumbly sponge. There are two possibilities for this cake: a Victorial sponge or a genoise. I chose to make the genoise as it is the lighter of the two. Also, as this cake needs to be stored in the fridge, the lower butter content of the genoise stops the sponge from firming up.

So start by making your cake.

Heat your oven to C 180.
Have a 23cm or 9 inch tin ready. Grease and flour it in readiness for your sponge.

I used 3 large free range eggs which were at room temperature.
100g caster sugar
100g SR flour
30g butter melted
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Start by breaking the eggs into a very clean and grease free bowl that is large enough to allow the eggs to expand when they have been beaten. Using a hand held whisk, beat the eggs until they are foamy.

The next step is to add the sugar. I was once told to heat the sugar before adding it to the eggs as this helps to create volume in the whisked eggs. I have always used this method when possible. It means that you don't have to have the eggs over  boiling water and to my mind this is no bad thing. Boiling water and electricity are not always good bed fellows. Whist the sugar and eggs together until they reach the ribbon stage. This will take about 10 minutes.

Now fold the sifted flour into the mix and then fold in the melted butter. Make sure that there are no streaks of flour or butter left. Be careful not to over mix as the sponge will not rise.

Cook in your preheated oven until golden and the sponge springs back when touched gently with your finger tip.  I did say gently. This is what it should look like when turned out onto a cooling rack.

NB I used a silicone baking form. I greased and floured it first as there is so little fat in the songe that I didn't want it to stick. As you see, it didn't.

I left the cake upside down as it gave a better surface to ice later on.

Allow your sponge to cool. Then transfer to a serving plate. Do it before you fill it an ice it. You will find that it is too soft to do it later. You will thank me for this advice.

While it's cooling make the pastry cream.

2 large egg yolks.

2 heaped tablespoons of sugar

1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour

1 teaspoon of vanilla or, for a real treat, 2 tbsp dark rum. Yumm

200ml whole milk

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the eggs and sugar until they are well blended. Beat in the flour and cornflour and set aside. Add the vanilla essence.

Bring the milk to the boil. I did mine in the microwave. Slowly pour half of the hot milk onto the egg mixture, whisking all the time, then add the remaining milk.

Bring the mixture back to the boil and simmer for one minute, whisking continuously, or until smooth.

Pour the cream into a clean bowl and top with cling film to prevent a skin forming.  Cool as quickly as possible. When cooled, refrigerate until needed.

So by this tile your cake will be well and truly cooled. Cut through the middle horizontally and fill the bottom half with the cooled pastry cream. Plese remember that the cream sets as it cools so if you put it on too soon it can run out and spoil the effect of the cake. As you can see, mine is fairly thick. If you have stouble setting your custard I have found a quick cheat. Mix half of the custard with some instant custard (about a tbs will usually do the trick) and heat in the microwave until thick. Then add to the remaining custard and leave to cool. Works a treat.

Put the top of the cake over the cream.

Now you can ice the cake with the chocolate ganach.

50 g dark chocolate of your choice chopped
75 ml double cream
1 teaspoon of oil.

This is simplicite itself.

Bring your cream to just below the boil. Add the chopped chocolate and oil and mix well. The chocolate will melt in the hot cream and will not need to be reheated. Allow to cool to a point where the ganach is still pourable but not so liquid that it will run straight off the sides of the cake.
Allow to set and then get a knife and dive in. You won't be disappointed.

Torta Parisina after Luca Montersino

Luca Montersino, just has to be one of the most talented and amazing chefs around at the moment. I bought three of his books when I was in Italy this year because I couldn't resist them. Could anyone? The following cake is not exactly as he made it because it was devised for prople who are alergic to wheat and thankfully I don't have that problem. I converted the recipe back to traditional ingredients and this is the result.

The recipe will follow shortly, so if you have stumbled upon my blog then please call back to see how to make this cake.

For the Peaches:

Take 3 ripe peaches and put them in a bowl that is large enough to cover them with  boiling water. Now boil your kettle and pour over the peaches. Leave for a few minutes and remove from the water. If you have left them long enough the skin will peel off easily.

Slice into eights and put them into a saucepan with a sugar syrup of about 50g sugar to 100ml water anf the juice of half a small lemon. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Leave to cool in the syrup. Drain and they are ready to use in your pie.

Start by making the pastry with

200g of plain flour

120 g butter

50g caster sugar.

1 egg

Rub all of the ingredients except the egg together to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Mix in enough egg to bind. Form into a ball and refridgerate for about 30 mins to firm uo the pastry.

Rum Custard Tartlets

This little custard tart is deceptive. It is small and cute but it is packed full of flavour and delicious as only a classic tart can be. I wanted to make something like the Portugese custard tarts that look fantastic but when I make them the puff pastry push the filling out and ruins the effect. So I opted for a more classic tart and this is what I've come up with.
Sweet Pastry

150 g flour

½ teaspoon baking powder
75g softened butter
50g sugar

Make the pastry by rubbing the ingredients for the pastry together and add a little water to bind.


Roll out and line a greased, pastry shapes. As you may have guessed I used my silicone ones as I love them.
Bake the pasrty cases blind. You only need to colour them slightly. Not too brown. The oven should be about 180.

Now for the filling:
To make this good and rich you will need
4 egg yolks
3 tbs sugar
two tbs dark rum
250ml whipping cream I made these in Italy and there is cream period - and there is no distinction between double and whipping. I am guessing that what is available is only whipping.

Add the sugar, and rum to the egg yolks and, mix well to break down the yolks.
Warm the cream to just below boiling point and add to the egg mixture mixing well.
Pour the mixture in to the part cooked cases and return to a medium oven until they have taken on a golden tinged.

Cool, dust with icing sugar and enjoy.

Millefoligie of frutti di bosco

When I was in Italy this summer I did a lot of cooking but not a lot of blogging. I had to feed the family for much of the time so I sort of saved my posts up so that I could put them on the site in the autumn when I had the time. The time has arrived, but I won't inundate you with posts as I will save them up. One of the best things about cooking in Italy though is the light when taking the photographs. it is so much better to take a photograph on a sunny day than a dank day in the winter in Britain.

This pudding is so easy to make and I must admit that I did rather cheat as I used a bought puff pastry.

So, roll out your pastry or, if it is ready rolled place it on a baking sheet and prick well with a fork. Dust with icing sugar as this helps to disguise that it's not home made and makes it taste better too. Cook at about C200 for as long as it takes to brown well. I don't like flabby pastry so cook until nice and brown. Press it down if it has risen too much. When cool cut in half so that you have two long strips.

For the filling. Make up a packet of instant custard with about 2/3 of the water than it says on the packet. Stir in a level tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Leave to become completely cool.

Whisk up 250ml of whipping cream or double cream and when it is at the floppy stage stir into the cold custard. Spread over one half of the puff pastry and top with the remaining pastry.

Spoon the fruits of the forest over the top.

To make the fruits of the forest topping, I picked whatever I could fine and mixed it with as much sugar as I thought that it needed to make it acceptable. I like mine sharp. It also depends on the ripeness of the fruit. The ones that I used were fairly sharp. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar and then set aside to cool. Store in the fridge if you are going to keep it for  awhile.

If you don't want to put the fruit on the top, you can serve it on the side. it will still bring a smile to a little girl's day.

Apple Custard Tart

I seem to remember having read somewhere that the dessert that men usually choose is apple tart and they no doubt eat it with custard. So in this tart they get both of their favourites in one slice.

Pastry:

120g plain flour

75g butter

60g sugar

1 egg

I'm not going to bore you with the method for making pastry. You know what to do.

Line an 8 inch tim with the pastry and bake blind until light golden brown.

Filling

2 largish apples. I used renette as I was luck enough to have them growing on my tree, but you can use russets. 3 will probably be about right as they are small. I clean and slice the apples and put them in a layer on a microwave proof dish. Cover with cling film and microwave until just soft. If you do this your apples will stay golden and not brown.

2 eggs

50g sugar

1/4 litre of single cream

1 dessert spoon of cornflour

What you need to do:

mix the ecc, sugar and cornflour together. There is really no need to whisk them and all that faff. It really will not make any difference to the final; custard.

Heat the cream to just below scalding point and add to the egg mixture. Beat well while adding the cream. This is important as you risk curdling the eggs if you don't mix it really well while you're adding the hot cream. Return to the heat to cook the custard until it thickens but not so much that it curdles. The addition of the cornflour should prevent this. Allow to cool slightly.

Pour the custard into the cooked pastry shell and cover with a layer of cooked apples.

Return to the oven for about 15 minutes to brown the apples and custard.

Cool before serving. Slightly warm is so good.