The Bostini

The Bostini, a deconstructed Boston Cream Pie, is up this week for the Heavenly Cake Bakers. A cupful of a pastry cream-creme anglaise is topped with an orange chiffon cupcake and glazed with a chocolate butter glaze. Can you see why we've all been anticipating this project for weeks?

October 31, 2010
Name of Cake: Deconstruction is Delicious
Occasion: HCB
Constituents: vanilla pastry cream-creme anglaise hybrid, orange glow chiffon cupcake, chocolate butter glaze

Although there are three components to this cake and at first look it seems as complicated as the Apple Caramel Charlotte (well...at least to me), it really comes together fairly easily. As this dessert needs to be enjoyed shortly after being composed, I decided to make a half recipe, which is actually half the cupcakes but 3/4 of the pastry cream and chocolate sauce. Thanks to Rose for all those gram weights--muliplying .75 by a gram measurement is so much easier than figuring out what 3/4 of a 1/2 cup would be.

First up, the orange glow chiffon cupcakes.

I almost regretted making only half the recipe, as the cupcakes were pretty delicious. Like any chiffon cake, the eggs are separated so that the whites can become a fluffy meringue. The yolks are mixed with oil, flour, baking powder, and in this case, orange zest and juice. Rose recommends using a silicone cupcake pan, but I used my regular metal one. I kind of mangled a few cupcakes when turning them out, so I get why silicone would be nice. Luckily my half recipe made 8 and 3/4 cupcakes, so I can pick and choose the good cupcakes for the dessert. The extra cupcakes will be nice with nutella, as I discovered when I ate the 3/4 cupcake last night. Heh.

I stored the cupcakes airtight on the counter and saved the rest of the recipe for today.

Today started off as a beautiful sunny Halloween, perfect for the vanilla creme anglaise, or as Marie calls it, the Shazam! Sauce.

Now, for future reference, when making 3/4 of this recipe you need to figure out 3/4 of one whole egg. Here's a hint for you, folks: break the egg down into individual components in order to get your 3/4 of an egg. One large egg white weighs 30 grams and one large egg yolk weighs 19 grams, so you'll need 22-23 grams egg white (technically 22.5) and 14 grams yolk.

You'll also need 3/4 of a pinch of salt, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out :)

So this 3/4 recipe actually only made enough for four cups--two 6 oz cups and two 5 oz cups. It was supposed to be enough for six Bostinis, so I don't know if I let the Shazam! get too thick before pouring into the cups. However, when it comes down to it, these are rich and laden with butterfat so maybe four is enough.

I would have made all of them in jam jars if I had enough!

About 30 minutes before eating, the cupcakes are placed head first into the cream and the warm chocolate sauce is made. The sauce is simply equal weights chocolate and butter melted together, and stirred until smooth. Just before serving the chocolate sauce is poured over the cupcakes. If there were any cupcake sticking up over the top of the glass, the sauce can be coaxed to run down the side of the cup.

Between myself and the Jellos, the Bostini was much enjoyed. I think Cookie liked it the best, but she is creme anglaise's number one fan and would enjoy almost anything it is a part of. In fact, she felt the cake was merely a hindrance to all that delicious Shazam! Sauce and would have preferred not to have it. Cabbage felt the cake was important as it provided some textural interest to the dessert. At first I felt the cake was superflous but soon changed my tune. I like the orange flavor the cake brought to the party, and was surprised to find that it stood up well to the rich chocolate and vanilla sauces. I felt that the Bostini was more of a deconstructed hot fudge sundae than a boston cream pie, but I am happy with it either way.