Monday, April 14
Cake! I had never before baked a cake.... until Saturday, that is. I was under a promise to make my boyfriend's favorite dessert for his birthday: Boston Cream Pie. So out comes the Julia cookbook, and an hour later I have a beautiful yellow cake.
Then, since none of my many cookbooks actually have the rest of the recipe, I have to turn to online sources. I find what I need from Epicurious, though the directions for the custard are somewhat counterintuitive.
Here are the instructions:
"Make the custard:
In a saucepan whisk together the cornstarch, the sugar, and the milk, add the eggs, the cream, and the salt, and whisk the mixture until it is smooth. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean, reserving the pod for another use, add them to the cream mixture, and bring the custard to a boil over moderate heat, whisking constantly. Boil the custard, whisking, for 2 minutes, remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the butter."
Now, putting the eggs in right away, and then BOILING for 2 minutes.... that sounds like a recipe for disaster, if you'll pardon the pun. And sure enough, it started curdling. So the "whisking constantly" part makes a little bit of sense, since it will keep the size of the curds small enough so as to be undetectable. Still, a very weird custard-making technique.
The glaze part of the recipe turned out great, so that was a relief. The only hard part was slicing the cake horizontally with a less-than-ideal knife. But it did turn out, and the cake didn't break in half. Success!
Time posted: 10:04 [permalink]
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