Stop 15: Massachusetts Boston Cream Pie (+)

Remember last year this time?  It was Mother's Day, which always falls on the same week as my grandmother, sister-in-law and mother's birthdays.  So, every year, I make a cake.  Now, if you knew my grandmother, you would know that she is 92 years old, quite smitten with her great grandchildren (to put it extremely mildly), and likes Boston Cream Pie.  I know this last fact because every time we are anywhere where there is Boston Cream Pie, she tells me that it's her favorite dessert and I think that, damn it! when you're 92, you should get your favorite dessert on every birthday.  I would give it to her every day, but she wouldn't eat it, she's convinced she has to watch her diet. When I'm 92, I'll be hitting the tanning beds and bourbon bottle more than just on Derby day, but to each their own.

OK, so I made the Boston Cream pie according to Brown's recipe, and to be honest, I didn't love it.  I didn't actually eat the cake, and it seemed like it came out alright, but it took an awfully long time to cook.  My issue was much more with the pastry cream.  The recipe I used last year, was much easier, and came out much better.  I also found the ganache from last year's recipe to come out a lot better as well.  Anyway, the cake was a big success regardless of what I thought.  I don't think I'll be recreating it, since I've had better success elsewhere, but everyone who actually ate it thought it was quite good.  I just wish the pastry cream would have set better...  Oh well.

Oh right, the detour in PARADISE!

Because of the aforementioned multitude of birthdays, it was requested that something chocolate and peanut butter be created for the occasion as well.  I was a little pouty about it because I couldn't think of anything and had so much on my baking plate, but then I found these!

I decided to make them.  And they, like the cake, did not come out physically as well as I would have liked, but they tasted like a slightly absurdly good version of awesome.  I used brownies from a mix and they didn't cook evenly for some reason which meant that the ones in the middle had extra gooey bottoms (really not much of an issue).  My peanut butter didn't firm up as much as I'd have liked, and the chocolate firmed up a bit too much, which made the cutting a little bit difficult.  But hey, I'm a perfectionist.