Boston Cream Pie

This is my Boston cream pie. I thought it failed. But letting it sit longer makes a huge difference in the quality because the pastry cream gets a chance to soak into the sponge-y cake. It was delicious.

I used Greg Patent's recipe from Origins (found online here) because he dedicated a lot of time to tracking down the true cake.

While I sincerely appreciate and value authenticity, I think baking is a place where tinkering and change are totally acceptable. Next time, I'll skip the almonds (they got soggy from the pastry cream that glues them to the side of the cake). I'll also mess with the chocolate topping (a simple mixture of chocolate and cream) because it turned out chewy, almost rubbery. I'll up the ratio of rum to water (brushed onto the cake layers before assembling) because I couldn't taste it at all in the final product. But the cake and the pastry cream were just right.

Pastry cream might be my favorite substance. I was happy to find that this recipe left me with more than a cup extra.

Working on chocolate chip cookies

Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle. And this was not right out of the oven. Almost perfect.

I figured out snickerdoodles. Now it's time for chocolate chip cookies.

The photo above is of my second attempt. The first attempt turned out weird (see the problems listed below) but pretty. The second attempt is very nearly perfect. They'd be better with a better chocolate, but I couldn't find Ghirardelli 60% at the co-op.

I'll gather feedback tonight at a party. And make them again in the middle of the week when I have my co-workers over for a Wii party. But they're pretty close to perfect.

Peanut butter-filled chocolate cookies

Yep. Yum.

I made these for Karly's housewarming party tonight. They're kind of a lot of work, especially compared to the drop cookies I normally make, but they're worth it for a special occasion.

Peanut butter-filled chocolate cookies
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies

Makes 32 cookies. But 30 fit perfectly onto two half sheet pans, so you'll eat two raw ones. Beware of salmonella!

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter (I used Maranatha, creamy with salt)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter

Cream the butter, sugars, and peanut butter until light. You'll actually see the color lighten as more air is incorporated. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and then mix that into the butter-sugar mixture. The dough will be really stiff, so finish with a wooden spoon if your hand mixer can't handle it.

Mix together the powdered sugar and 1/2 cup peanut butter. It's not a big deal if you get proportion of sugar to peanut butter exactly right; I had to add more peanut butter to get it to combine.

Preheat oven to 350°. Divide the cookie dough into 32 balls, about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Do the same with the peanut butter mixture, about 3/4 inches in diameter. Flatten a dough ball in the palm of your hand, place a peanut butter ball on top, and fold the cookie dough over the peanut butter to enclose. Roll the mixture into a ball, and set on a non-greased cookie sheet. Parchment paper isn't necessary, as these release easily. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Flatten each ball by pressing on it with a drinking glass dipped in sugar (press the cookie first to get the sugar to stick to the glass).

Bake for eight minutes, rotating the tray half way through. Leave on the cookie sheet for about a minute to set more, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

German chocolate sheet cake

I've never been a big fan of German chocolate cake. When I was a kid, it was because of the pecans in the topping. Nuts in desserts always made me angry. Now, it's because… I'm not sure. The cake is rather boring, with a dull, generic chocolate flavor. The topping is too sweet. Now, the pecans in the topping are probably my favorite part of the whole cake.

It's not something I would ever choose for myself. But my Auntie Barb requested it for her birthday, and I was happy to oblige. I found a recipe for it on Cook's Illustrated and got to work on Sunday morning.

The cake was fun to make, and the batter tasted amazing. Velvety and tangy. It turned out thicker than it was supposed to because I used Nancy's sour cream, which is almost the consistency of cream cheese. I think this contributed to the long baking time it required. I ended up pulling it out of the oven before the middle was actually done because the sides were over baking.

I still didn't like the cake, but other people seemed to. If I were to attempt it again, I would make these changes:

• Use regular sour cream
• Add maybe half a cup of dark, chopped chocolate or chocolate chips to the batter
• Use hot coffee instead of boiling water (to pour over and melt the chocolate and cocoa)
• Reduce the granulated sugar in the topping from 1 cup to 1/2 cup
• Broil the topping (need to buy a metal 9" x 13" pan, first

I doubt that I will attempt it again any time soon, though. Too many other things I'd rather make. 

Alton Brown's The Puffy

I already have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's this. But Aaron's friends Jeff and Leon requested super-soft chocolate chip cookies for their birthday party, and that recipe is crispy-chewy, not super-soft.

I remembered watching an episode of Good Eats where Alton played with chocolate chip cookie techniques and ingredients to create different styles of cookie. I easily tracked down the recipe and made them.

Commenters on the recipe at the Food Network site complained of two main things: the cookies aren't actually puffy, and they're too sweet. I found the first to be very true. They weren't puffy at all. They were soft, though, so I successfully fulfilled the birthday request. As to the second complaint, I often think baked goods are too sweet. These cookies weren't. They had a nice saltiness to balance out the sweetness. It probably helped that I always use a fairly dark semi-sweet chocolate chip (Guittard in the bulk bin).

I still prefer the crispy-chewy chocolate chip cookies I found on Smitten Kitchen last year, but The Puffy is a good alternative for folks who like a softer cookie.

Ultimate chocolate cupcakes with ganache filling and creamy malted milk chocolate frosting

I made Cook's Illustrated's Ultimate chocolate cupcakes with ganache filling with creamy malted milk chocolate frosting for Aaron's birthday party, and while gorging on the frosting decided that it’s what I want to eat right before I die. These cupcakes make me so angry at all other cupcakes for being inferior. I don’t understand why, if cupcakes can taste like this, anyone puts up with cupcakes that:

• Have a huge, chewy, muffin-like crumb
• Have sandy, greasy frosting
• Are way way way too sweet
• Look infinitely better than they taste
• Are dry
• Taste like chemicals
• Taste like nothing

My love for these cupcakes has shot my future-plan of being a baker to the head of the list of options. Seriously. I’m going to look for a job in a bakery.