Sweet Ending to 2022

Freezing temperatures and burst pipes had us postpone our family gathering. I'd spent Christmas Eve preparing a Boston Cream Pie that Grandpa wanted and we ended up "having" to eat it ourselves. Fortunately, our neighbor was willing to take half! The recipe is Lucinda's Boston Cream Pie from Martha Stewart, and the No Fuss Pastry Cream also from Martha Stewart, and the ganache is from Sally's Baking Addiction. Though the cake was delicious I'd say the ratio of cake to pastry cream was a bit off because the cakes were a bit tall for my taste. If making again I'd still choose the 8"cake pan size but perhaps remove some of the batter to make into cupcakes. In this ganache recipe you use corn syrup for shine. Maybe the cream needed to be at room temperature cream instead of straight from the fridge, because the corn syrup didn't fully dissolve and I had to put the mixture through a sieve. So I don't know if it made a difference in the end. For a festive look I decorated the cake with Peppermint Swirl meringues piped in a bag streaked with red coloring. I dipped the bottoms in a mixture of 100% cacao and bittersweet chocolate which worked great to counter the sweetness of the meringue. The meringues last a long time in a closed container at room temperature and were even better after a week. 


Bubby's 2022 Gingerbread House makes the cake look so festive!


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