Baby Shower and Mini Boston Cream Pies

Last weekend we had a baby shower for my soon to be niece, Morgan! It was a lot of fun and my sister-in-law got some great goodies for the baby.

I had planned to make little cream puffs for one of the desserts, but that morning I failed at making them. Not sure what I did but they were crumbly and not edible. Since I had already made the pastry cream filling, I baked a vanilla sheet cake in order to make mini cakes, cutting circles with a biscuit cutter and layering them with pastry cream and then chocolate. If you have enough champagne or martini glasses you could serve these as individual trifles too. This now makes me want to figure out how to make a sponge cake to make a true Boston Cream Pie, as I love anything that incorporates pastry cream/pudding and chocolate.

Here are my pastry cream and chocolate glaze recipes, which I got from Baking Illustrated.

Pastry Cream

Ingredients:

• 2 cups half and half
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 5 large egg yolks
• 3 T cornstarch
• 4 T unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 t vanilla extract

Directions:

• Heat the half-and-half, 6 tablespoons of the sugar, and the salt in a saucepan over medium heat until simmering, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar.
• While that heats, whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl until combined. Add in remaining 2 T sugar and whisk until creamy (15 seconds or so). Whisk in cornstarch until egg yolks become pale and creamy, about 30 seconds.
• When the half and half mixture reaches a simmer, slowly pour into the yolks while whisking in order to temper the yolks.
• Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat. Whisk constantly until a few big bubbles appear and the mixture is thick and glossy. Should only take about a minute or two for this.
• Remove from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla.
• Over the storage bowl, strain the pastry cream in a sieve to insure there are no lumps or bumps. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it down on the surface of the cream so a skin does not form.
• Refrigerate at least 3 hours, or up to 2 days.

Chocolate Glaze

Ingredients:

• 1 cup heavy cream (I used half and half)
• 8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped (I ended up using a full bag of chocolate chips)
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 t vanilla extract

Directions:

• Bring the cream and corn syrup to a full simmer over medium heat in a saucepan. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate; cover and let stand for 8 minutes. After 8 minutes, stir the chocolate. If the chocolate has not completely melted, return the saucepan to low heat and stir constantly until melted.
• Add the vanilla; stir very gently until the mixture is smooth. Cool until tepid so that a spoonful drizzled back into the pan mounds slightly. (The glaze can be refrigerated to speed up to the cooling process, stirring every few minutes to ensure even cooling.)

Here was my dessert table – I also made mini chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and decorated baby onesie cookies. Everything was purple but looks more blue in the picture.

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