Boston Cream Pie

 
Today I invite you to celebrate the 5th anniversary of my blog (the Polish version).

I propose on this occasion an American classic: Boston Cream Pie. In fact, no one truly knows why this name was given to this cake. Some explain that probably first East Coast immigrants coming from Europe brought only pie pans and bake every kind of cake in them. Officially the original authorship is attributed to the French pastry chef Sanzian employed for the opening of Boston's Parker House hotel in 1856. The hotel was known as the first in town with hot water and elevator. Boston cream pie is a nineteenth-century delicacy, and since 1996 is also known as the official dessert of the state of Massachusetts.

I admit that being twice in Boston I never found an occasion to eat this cake. There is more: to be honest I didn´n know that it even existed. Traveling through the US I tasted and liked very much  the Boston cream donuts - donuts stuffed with custard and with chocolate glaze on top, very, very tasty.

Boston Cream Pie

Spring form ( diameter 23 cm )

Sponge:

 5 eggs, whites and yolks separated
100 g cake flour 
1 / 2 teaspoon baking powder 
150 g sugar, divided 
pinch of salt 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
3 tablespoons milk 
2 tablespoons (30g) butter

Chiboust Cream:

 200 ml milk 
200 ml double cream 
1 vanilla pod
3 egg yolks 
90 g sugar
 pinch of salt 
25 g (3 tbsp) cornstarch 
20 g (3 tablespoons) cake flour
1 tablespoon unsalted butter 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150 ml heavy cream 
15 g vanilla sugar 

Glaze:

 150 g dark chocolate 60% 
125 ml double cream 
1 tablespoon butter 
3 tablespoons corn syrup (optional)

For soaking the cake:

 juice of 1 / 2 lemon 
1 tablespoon vanilla liqueur 
1 tablespoon rum 
4 tablespoons water

Sponge:

 Preheat the oven to 175 º C. 
Sift flour with baking powder. Warm up the milk and butter until butter is dissolved, and keep warm. Whip egg yolks with half the sugar and vanilla extract, light cream weight, dissolved in milk, add butter and a little while mixing.
Whip eggs whites with a pinch of salt and the rest of the sugar. Incorporate them to the cake mixture with the aid of spatula. Add sifted flour and mix very carefully again. Pour the dough into spring form pan (base lined with baking paper) and bake for about 40 minutes until top is golden brown and a stick stuck in the middle of the dough comes out dry.
Cut the sponge cake in two equal layers after it cools completely .  

Mix ingredients for soaking and brush both layers of the cake (from the cut side).

  Chiboust Cream:

 Mix egg yolks with sugar, then add  flour and corn starch to form a smooth paste. Bring milk to a boil with splitted vanilla bean. Take out the vanilla. Pour the boiling milk into the yolk paste and stir vigorously. Transfer the mixture back into the pot and bring to boil again. When small bubbles appear take off the heat and add the butter and vanilla extract. Mix everythin together and a smooth put into a clean container.
Cover the surface with a transparent cling film to prevent a formation of the skin (the film has to lie directly on the cream) and leave to cool completely. When it is cold put into the fridge. Whip heavy cream with vanilla sugar. Add egg custard to the whipped cream (one tablespoon at a time) each time mixing well.

Glaze:

 Melt all ingredients over low heat or in microwave and mix them well.

Assembling the cake:

 Spoon all the chiboust cream on the bottom layer. Cover with the top layer. You should reverse layers so that the bottom of the cake is on top. Pour warm glaze on the top of a cake so that it drips down the sides.

Kulfi - Pink ice cream from India with plum and cardamom sauce

These are ice creams of Indian origin, for which you do not need an ice-cream machine, and yet in some magical way they are perfectly creamy. You do not need to add eggs, or beaten cream, or other hyper-caloric bombs (but I do not dare call it diet ice cream ;)). I always admired the kulfi in Indian restaurants, and now for the first time I tried to do it myself. Maybe in a slightly less orthodox way. Classics kulfi are not usually made of fruit - they are made mostly with milk and spices. In my version of kulfi the spices still exist - it contains wonderfully aromatic cardamom, but there are  also plums in this recipe that go very well with cardamom. 

The cardamom is extremely important, please do not omit it. Ideally you should use the pods, shell them yourself and crush them in a mortar. They add wonderful oriental aroma to your ice-creams.
You can line your moulds for Indian ice creams with plastic wrap. But if you want to have your kulfi perfectly smooth (I just do not care for it, because I quite like those funny wrinkles on the surface) do not use plastic wrap, just put the molds briefly into hot water before taking ice creams out. 

The original idea came from Mary Cadogan, and I found it here.

Pink kulfi with plum and cardamom sauce
 

yields 6

3 green cardamom pods
700g sliced red plums
100g sugar
400ml sweetened condensed milk
150ml whole milk
2 tablespoons of chopped pistachios

  Crush cardamom in a mortar into a powder. Put cardamom, plums and sugar in a saucepan. Bring it slowly to boil ( if you need you can add about 5 tablespoons of water ). Mix in a blender to a smooth paste. Leave to cool.

Mix whole milk with condensed milk and 300 ml of plum puree. Pour it into prepared molds and freeze for at least 4 hours.

Serve kulfi on a plate with some plum sauce, topped with chopped pistachio. 

Raspberry & Rhubarb Vanilla Rice Pudding

The pudding of my childhood... Now with some rhubarb and raspberries to balance the smoothness sweetness of vanilla milk rice. You can try it with different fruit combination. Strawberries and rhubarb, raspberries and peaches, blackberries and apricots. Just use your imagination and the best seasonal produce.

Raspberry and Rhubarb Vanilla Rice Pudding
 
4 - 6 servings

1 liter of 3.5% fat milk 
pinch of salt 
100g short-grain rice 
100-120g of sugar 
1 / 2 vanilla bean

350g rhubarb cut into small pieces 
1 / 2 teaspoon grated lemon peel 
30g sugar (or slightly more if the rhubarb is very tart) 
125g raspberries

 
Bring the milk to boil  in a large pan with the vanilla bean split in half . Add to the boiling milk rice (previously rinsed) and a pinch of salt. At a very low heat (it has just to simmer very gently) cook it covered for about 1 hour, stirring frequently, until rice begins to thicken. If you have too much milk at the end of cooking, take off the lid for the last 15-20 minutes, so the liquid may evaporate. 10 minutes before the end of cooking add the sugar and remove vanilla bean.
Mix chopped rhubarb with sugar and lemon peel in a small saucepan. Cover it and cook over low heat until it falls apart and creates a kind of mousse.
When the rice cools down a little put it into bowls or glasses and top with rhubarb mousse and raspberries. You can eat it warm, at room temperature or cold from the fridge.

Enjoy !

Coconut truffles from Goa

Coconut truffles from Goa ( 30 truffles )

35 g (1 / 2 cup) desiccated unsweetened coconut flakes
125g ghee butter  (or regular clarified butter)
2 tablespoons of tahini sesame paste or smooth peanut butter
50 g (1 / 3 cup) icing sugar
150 g (1 and 1 / 2 cup) milk powder

coconut and chopped pistachios for decoration 

Melt the butter in a pan, pour half  of it to the mixer bowl. Add coconut flakes to the rest of the butter in a pan and fry them until they get golden brown. Mix the remaining butter in a blender with icing sugar and tahini (or peanut butter). Add fried coconut and then gradually add milk powder to the mixture until it is thick. 

Put the mixture into the refrigerator tightly covered until it set. 

Form small round truffles from the cold mixture (most convenient way is to use a little ice cream scoop ) and then roll them with your hands. If the truffles stick to your hands, add more powdered milk. If it crumbles, add a little more melted butter. 

Once formed, you can coat the truffles with coconut or chopped pistachios but it is not necessary. The truffles  are just as good without these extras. Put them for 1 hour into the fridge and serve cold.

 

Black and white cheesecake with a touch of coconut

Black and white cheesecake with a touch of coconut

Cake pan: 40 x 26 cm, minimum depth - 5 cm

Crust:

400g flour 
20 g (3 tablespoons) of cocoa
1 / 8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
50 g (8 tbsp) unsweetened coconut flakes
100 g sugar
250 g cold butter
2 egg yolks

 Filling:

1 kg quark cheese 20% fat  (I've used the German Speisequark)

400 g cream cheese Philadelphia type


50 g unsweetened coconut flakes


315 g (1 1 / 2 cup) sugar


1 tablespoon grated orange peel

4 egg yolks

100 g butter, melted

40 g (1 pack) vanilla pudding powder (eg. Dr Oetker)



6 egg whites


pinch of salt

70 g sugar

Crust:

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder. Add salt, sugar and coconut and cubed cold butter. Rub butter into flour until it get crumbly. Add egg yolks (all egg whites keep for the filling) and knead the dough into a ball. Divide the dough into 2 parts (the part that goes to the bottom should be slightly bigger). Wrap in foil and place in fridge for at least 1 hour.

 Filling:

Preheat the oven to 170 º C. Mix cheese with 315 g of sugar, orange peel and coconut. Add one egg yolk while still whisking. Mix in cooled melted butter and pudding powder. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and 70 grams of sugar until very stiff. Stir white eggs gently with a spatula into the cheese mixture.

   Grate the bigger part of the dough onto the bottom of the cake pan. Lightly press it with your hands. Pour the cheese filling. On top grate the rest of the dough. Bake for approximately 1 hour. Cool in the oven.

Enjoy !

Happy Easter everybody !

Chocolate Mazurek for Polish Easter

Mazurek is a classic Polish Easter dessert. About 3-4 cm high, rectangular, oval or round. Usually made with pastry crust or on wafers (the kind used for ice creams, only flat). As for the filling - it is always quite sweet and there is a great variety of classic fillings.

But the most crucial aspect in this cake is the decoration. The mazurek is always very elaborated and  usually features some Easter motives - eggs, chicks, bunnies, catkins ( here you have two photos of quite typical mazurek). Cake decorating is always a huge problem for me so this time I made only a simple geometric pattern, filling wafer holes with chocolate and almonds.

My mazurek has a rich chocolate filling studded with nuts, almonds and dried fruits. It is usually the first cake to disappear from our Easter table. :) Enjoy !

Chocolate Mazurek

3 large rectangular thin wafers 
3/4 cup full fat milk 
3/4 cup sugar 
250 g butter 
500 g (18 oz) whole milk powder
3 tablespoons dark cocoa 
2 tablespoons nutella spread (or other chocolate- hazelnut spread)
50 g (2 oz) unsweetened coconut flakes
150 g (5 oz) approximately chopped nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds) and
100 g (4 oz) prunes and dried apricots cut into fine strips
100g (4 oz) raisins (dark and light, soaked in rum for 1 hour)

For decoration: 
100 g (4 oz) white chocolate 
100 g (4 oz) dark chocolate 
2 tablespoons butter 
6 tablespoons pouring cream 12-18% fat 
a few whole almonds

Bring to a boil milk with sugar (the latter must be completely dissolved - it is important!). Add the butter and mix until it melts. Leave to cool. Add powdered milk and cocoa and mix until everything is smooth and thick. Add nutella and mix again. Incorporate coconut flakes, one finely crushed wafer, nuts and dried fruits.  Spread the filling evenly on one wafer, cover with the other. Put a large chopping board and a pile of books on top of the cake. Leave on the counter overnight. After decorating you have to store it in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly in aluminium foil.

Decoration:
Melt each chocolate separately with half of the butter and cream in a microwave oven ( 180 W for about 1-2 minutes; remove, mix to check if it melted, and if necessary put it again to microwave for several seconds) or in a water bath.  Fill 2 pastry sleeves with 2 kinds of chocolate and decorate your cake. Insert some almonds in soft chocolate.