Wednesday, March 23, 2011

boston cream pie inspired birthday cake


When it was time to bake something for my best friend Sue's birthday, I couldn't decide what to make - something light, like chiffon cake?  Or some other kind of cake?  Then I remembered that she loves boston cream pie, so I decided to make her a boston cream pie cake!


I found this recipe on Everyday Food that I decided to use.  Except I wanted to make a small 6-inch version (the last birthday cake that I made for Sue was ice cream cake and it stayed in her freezer for like 3 months before she finished it!)  So instead of making one 9-inch cake and then cutting it in half horizontally like the recipe says, I made two 6-inch cake layers and tried to adjust the baking time accordingly.


Also I wanted to make it look more like a birthday cake than the traditional ganache-glazed boston cream pie, so I used this recipe for the chocolate ganache and whipped it so that I could pipe with it (I also added 1 cup of powdered sugar to sweeten it a bit and make it more like frosting).



In the end though, I wasn't satisfied with the cake.  Even though all the components for boston cream pie were there, it just tasted like a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  I thought that it needed more pastry cream, and the cake was not as moist as I wanted it - I probably need to make more adjustments to my baking time for the 6-inch pans, as I only decreased the time by 5 minutes.


Despite the flaws, hopefully she enjoyed the cake anyway.  Happy Birthday Sue!!!  We love you!!!

10 comments:

  1. Gorgeous!!!!Lovelly!!!Beautifull!!!Just a few words to discribe this cake...
    Nice work.

    Kisses,
    Rita

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  2. Incredible job on this cake. It looks fabulous. Boston cream is a wonderful flavor choice.

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  3. thanks for the encouraging comments! :) next time i'll work on a moister cake and add a thicker pastry cream layer!

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  4. Wow, this looks so yummy! How do you create the effect on the side of the cake? I'm new to all of this lol...

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  5. even tho you were dis-satisfied with the end taste result, this is a work of art. it's absolutely beautiful.

    i am new to your blog, i'm going to look for a tutorial of that basketweave icing.

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  6. The basket-weave caught my eye, yours looks flawless (excellent work). My boyfriend helped judge a baking contest recently and one of the cakes was decorated like this and he was very impressed - maybe one day.

    This cake looks like it has great potential - just need double the cream (more layers for more room for cream). Beautiful post and pictures though, thanks for sharing!!

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  7. So pretty! Your piping looks great. Sorry the taste was not as great as you wanted.

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  8. Just came across post. Looks wonderful, but perhaps cutting each cake in half to make this a 4 layer cake, with the pastry cream between each layer would have solved the issue of not enough cream? Just my 2 cents.

    I think my daughter would love this cake. I might have to make it for her. Thanks for the inspiration!

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