As fond as I am of BakeSpite, the joint food-blogging venture I launched at the beginning of last year with my special lady friend, the prospect of maintaining two blogs (in addition to what I have to do for work!) is just too daunting. So, after much deliberation, I’ve decided to consolidate. We will, from time to time, be writing about food here on GameSpite. If this offends you… man, I don’t know what to tell you. Don’t get so bent out of shape about other peoples’ harmless hobbies, I guess?
Anyway, to kick things off, I am going to talk about a ridiculously delicious cake I had last night. It was called a pie, which is confusing, but whatever. It was good. Really, really good.
For my birthday, Cat baked me a Boston Creme Pie. It is a cake, though. But the cake in this instance was in fact used somewhat like a pie shell. So, in a sense, it’s both at once.
The history of this dessert will actually be explained in detail on tomorrow’s episode of “Games, Dammit!” because I know that people listen to video game podcasts to hear about my thoughts on food. A quick summary, though: The night before I left for PAX East, we flipped past Bobby Flay’s TV show “Throwdown,” wherein he travels around the U.S. challenging popular chefs on their own terms. I’ve noticed he almost never wins, which I think is a deliberate feature of the show… either that or he becomes confounded when he cooks things that can’t easily be adapted into a Southwestern style. Boston Creme Pie, for instance: not so good with corn salsa and roasted poblano peppers.
As we flipped channels, we happened to notice the theme was Boston Creme Pie, and the defenders’ recipe looked amazing. Then I traveled to Boston and had Boston Creme Pie, but while it was tasty it also wasn’t the rad version I’d seen on the show, so I wasn’t quite satisfied. Thus, Cat dug up the recipe and baked it for me, and it is probably the most complex thing she’s ever baked. But it turned out wonderfully.
The unique hook of this particular recipe is, as I mentioned, the way the cake becomes a pie shell. As such:
You start by baking a cake and letting it cool. Then you scoop out most of the cake and pour vanilla custard into the hollow. Then you cut the scooped cake into cubes and drop the pieces onto the custard. Then you pour a chocolate ganache over top and refrigerate immediately. It is fantastic. I honestly like it much better than the Boston Creme Pie I had while I was in Boston, and that particular pie came from one of the city’s most popular bakeries! Amazing what melting down two pounds of chocolate with a pound of butter will do for a dessert.
The one shortcoming of this recipe is that it’s huge and ended up resulting in two of the full-sized cakes you see above. (Plus we had a ton of creme and ganache left over.) We’ll be hard-pressed to finish just one cake before the fresh cream in the custard goes funny, so we had to give the second cake to our upstairs neighbor. Crazy, right? Now you wish you lived above me for some reason besides your weird, stalker-y obsession.
P.S., per request, the recipe Cat used is here.
I want to eat my computer monitor right now.
Leftover custard and ganache? Well, you could use some of that to make Boston Creme Pie Portable… Get some pre-made shortbread cups, scoop some custard in there, top it with ganache and perhaps a few slices of strawberry, and you’re golden.
As for Southwestern style desserts involving custard, you might be surprised. Sometimes I make creme brulee, but with corn; and honestly, the idea of a dessert based on roasted peppers sounds intriguing. Maybe I’ll try to come up with something this weekend.
I’m totally down with Southwestern-style desserts, and the natural sugar in corn makes it a good ingredient. I love spicy sweets, too. But I specifically don’t think Boston Creme Pie lends itself well to that style.
I think I can speak for the Entire Internet when I say I have no objections to sharing photos/stories of something that glorious, regardless of the website name in the title bar.
I got a taste for Boston Cream Pies in college, though obviously dining hall cakes are not nearly as good as that one. The BCPs were the best cake in the dining hall, though! …not that that says much.
So… where did you find this recipe–and can you point to it / link to it? I’m on spring break, and there’s a cooking itch that I’ll have to get at before it ends.
Done: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/boston-cream-pie-recipe2/index.html
I know where you’re coming from on this. A couple years back, there was another episode of Throwdown With Bobby Flay where the theme was Eggplant Parmigiana. The defenders’ recipe not only won, but it looked so freakin’ awesome I had to try it myself.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mikes-deli-famous-eggplant-parmigiana-recipe/index.html
Here’s a protip: don’t use store brand cheese. I tried it once to save a couple of bucks and the end result was a mess. I had much better results the two times I cooked it with Precious brand mozzarella, but if you have a personal preference, go with it.
This reminds me of this ongoing thing Kevin and I have wanting to see more of: cake-pies and pie-cakes. The former is cake baked into a pie, and the latter is cake made out of pies. And then you get into things like cake-pie pies (cake-pie baked into a pie) and cake-pie cakes and cake-pie pie-cakes. And then he found this: http://bakeitinacake.com/.
Also, this is probably the most delicious Boston Creme Pie I’ve ever seen, from someone who doesn’t even like them that much.
Much as I like the idea of food blogs, I never found myself going to Bakespite. I’m glad you’re consolidating. Hell, you’ll reach a broader audience this way, probably.
It is an interesting idea. And it looks easier to keep the custard in the cake this way than in the traditional method. I’ll have to try a half recipe.
Now I wish I was any good at cooking (well, and less ADHD)
looks rad, but man, i wish it wasn’t custard.
If I have to get a new keyboard because I salivate all over this one, I’m sending you the bill Parish.
I really thought you meant the other Kat (Bailey) for a second or two in this article. I am sad that I am wrong, as I must again retire my plans to write a slash fic romance involving video game editors.
Seriously though, I gots no beef with the food articles.
This is pure cakeporn. Does that word exist?
I´ll try baking one myself this afternoon!
Oooh you Americans with your weird cups and pounds… now I have to convert all these into the metric system. Its your fault, when my cakepie-thingy explodes or worse.
A stick of butter?! WTF?
Nope. THREE sticks.
I wasn´t as much shocked about the amount (I am now, that I know how much stick is) but about the – at least for me – weird measurement – I never knew, you could measure butter in “sticks”.
Anyway, I´m preparing half the recipe now; the cake is in the oven and soon, I´ll beginn working on the custard cream.
I hope this means that there will be more frequent food related posts. Games and cooking are my two major hobbies.
*GASP*
How dare you have interests other than Metroidvania-style games from the last century!
Wow. That looks awesome.
Sigh. Working in the adult industry makes it impossible for me to see the words “cream pie” innocently.
Whoa. Loss of words at the pictures. I don’t like sweets much, but I would make a BIG exception here. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
So, the cake is done and cooling of outside. But I´m not sure if it turned out correctly – the custard seemed rather runny… the pressure of the chocalate and the cake seemed to press it outside a bit. But well, lets wait for the chocolate-shell to harden.
Wow, you’re doing this thing? Hope it works out for you!
It´s been on the cold balcony over the night and will be ceremonously slaughtered this evening – in about 12 hours. It does look a bit messy at the sides, but the taste should be just find. I think, I´ll be taking a few pictures of the piecakes delicious demise.
That honestly looks like the tastiest thing of all time. I may bake one this weekend just for the hell of it.
Bobby Flay used to win on Throwdown all the time when regular home cooks were “famous” for something less specific, like “chili” or “hamburgers.” Then they realized that people don’t like watching a nationally-famous chef beat up on Joe Schmo from the suburbs. So now he battles actual restaurant cooks on specific specialties and usually loses because he puts his own twist on iconic dishes that the locals don’t want him to mess with.
You know, there are tons of Bay Area Tyrant meetups, should you have extra food in the future…
Man, I’m totally wanting to make it. Do you think it could be scaled down to make… one cake? I know sometimes halving all the inexpedience can completely kill something. I’d feel like a giant Teletubby cooking two giant, rich cakes that wont keep longer than a few days.
Yeah, it’s hilarious that the recipe is for *two* cakes… Also, it needs Jeremy’s awesome picture attached.
That is when the power of math comes into play!
I cannot spell, also.
I am not normally a Boston Creme Pie fan, but holy crap. That looks delicious.
if you have leftovers, send them to me. The cake looks BANGING!
I want to eat my monitor.
Soo, just as I said, here are two cake-impressions. First one of the cake before cutting it:
http://www.g-wie-gorilla.de/images/meins/kuchen1.jpg
As you can see, at some places, the custard came out. Any way to prevent this? I mean, its supposed to be runny, right? The weight of the cake on top and the chocolate seemed to much…
Anyway, this is from a bit later : It doesn´t look as beautiful as yours, but the taste was brillant. People loved it.
http://www.g-wie-gorilla.de/images/meins/kuchen2.jpg
Looking back, I think I didn´t have enough dough – I took half the recipe, but my cakepan was probably too big.
Bravo! Not sure what advice to offer on the custard, since I didn’t do the baking here. Did you let it cool and thicken before applying the chunks and ganache? It’s also possible that simply beating the custard for longer would have helped it stiffen and provide better support.
The Custard was rather stiff and cold before I added the whipped cream. I suspect, the cream is to blame, I should have whipped it a bit longer.
Or I should have given the custard + cream a bit more time to stiffen before filling it into the cake. Next time then.