Friday 3 October 2008

Boston Cream Cupcakes


I have officially made the world's best cupcakes. For me, the following cupcakes represent perfection. Now I should preface this by saying that I am a huge fan of Boston Cream Pie. My dad and I used to sit around the kitchen table when I was a kid and eat a whole pie together. Every birthday for my cake I wanted Boston Cream Pie cake. We used to make this using one box of yellow cake mix, one box of vanilla pudding and one tub of chocolate frosting. Now that I've grown up I can't stand buying boxed cake mix but could never find a recipe that replicated the taste I love so much. Well this is it. These cupcakes came out exactly as I remembered from my days of sitting around that table getting chubby with my daddy.


We start out making yellow cupcakes. This is my favorite recipe but of course any yellow cupcakes will do. This recipe comes from A Bakers Field Guide to Cupcakes (a book which I highly recommend).


-Flour (1 1/2 cups)
-Baking powder (1 1/2 tsps)
-Salt (1/4 tsps)
-Butter (1/2 cup)
-Sugar (3/4 up)
-Egg (2 large)
-Vanilla (1 1/2 tsp)
-Milk (1/2 cup)

Mix the first three ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Cream the butter with the sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Then add the flour mix in alternate increments with the milk, ending with flour.


Then spoon into 12 cupcake holders and bake at 350 F (170 C) for 18 minutes. They go in looking like this:


And they come out looking like this:


That's the cupcake part done. Next comes the filling. For the filling any pastry cream/pudding recipe will work. Basically you want to mix some sugar and egg yolks together until the yellow color fades a bit, stir in a bit of flour, combine with milk and vanilla and heat on low until thickened (stirring the whole time). I only wanted to fill 6 cupcakes so I used 4 tsps sugar, 1 egg yolk, 2tsps flour, 1/3 cup milk and just a dash of vanilla. You are supposed to let this chill in the frig for a couple hours but I don't have that much patience. Because I made such a small amount I was able to cool it in a bit of ice water. I then injected the pastry cream into the cupcakes using a pastry bag and filling tip (I have Wilton's Bismark tip 320).


Next comes the topping. You are supposed use Chocolate Ganache. But I didn't feel like opening a whole thing of cream just for a tiny amount to frost these cupcakes. What I did was melt 50g dark chocolate with a tiny bit of butter. Frost with the melted chocolate but then this topping needs to harden to become good so you have to put the cupcakes in the fridge for 10 minutes or so. To achieve perfection the cupcakes should sit overnight (or you should let the pastry cream chill before filling). They were still very good after 10 minutes though. They were fantastic for breakfast the next morning.



That's it. It took me about an hour to make these (though keep in mind I had to keep stop to take photos) and it was well worth it. I will make these again and again and again. I put 6 plain cupcakes in my freezer so my husband and I wouldn't eat 12 cupcakes in 2 days (something which we can and will easily do) but I'm sorely tempted to get them out. I'm resiting the urge though...for now.

6 comments:

Finla said...

They looks absloutley delicious.

Anonymous said...

Mmm. Brings back memories. I know what I'm making this weekend!

Anonymous said...

Your photo immediately caught my eye on tastespotting - simply poetic and beautiful.

Heather said...

i love boston cream pie! cupcakes are even better!! and ohmygosh your whisk is so cute!!

JoesFreeAds.com said...

Wish I was there to taste them Plus the photo is stunning. Romace and cupcakes... !

Anonymous said...

What a great cupcake! I'm on the fence as to whether I should make cupcakes or an actual Boston Cream Pie. Hmmmmmmm.