Eunice Feller's Boston Cream Pie

What does one do when recuperating from hip replacement surgery? If you're a foodie like me, you watch a lot of the Food Network. Bobby Flay is like the golden child of the Food Network. He is featured on several shows including Grill It!, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Iron Chef and Throwdown. In addition, he's often featured as guest judge on shows such as The Next Food Network Star and Top Chef. Eunice Feller's Boston Cream Pie was featured on an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay recently. The premise of Throwdown is that Bobby Flay finds people reknowned for a single dish. He challenges these people to a throwdown, putting his version of the dish up against theirs, unbeknownst to them until the actual competition occurs. Judges are brought in, the dishes are evaluated in a public forum and a winner is declared. In this episode, Bobby Flay baked a traditional Boston Cream Pie which was pitted against Eunice Feller's pumped up one. Eunice's recipe was the one featured on the Food Network web site, so that's the one I made. Because cupcakes are such a hit at my house, I tried them as cupcakes.

I love Boston Cream Pie, but I have yet to taste one as creamy, moist and tender as this recipe. In fact, I have yet to taste any cake recipe as creamy, moist and tender as this recipe. Then again, I have yet to bake a cake using as many eggs, or as much butter and whole milk as this recipe. The recipe is marked as "intermediate" in difficulty, probably due to the amount of work needed in its manufacture and assembly. Don't let the "untested" disclaimer fool you - the cake itself is quite easy to make.

First the cake. The recipe was straight-forward, but I had difficulty mixing it the way the recipe specifies. Because I'm not using a heavy-duty professional mixer, I couldn't add the wet ingredients in 3 parts. The batter was so thick and bulky that it wound itself around the beaters (I don't have a paddle attachment) and I was forced to add all of the wet ingredients without the beating inbetween additions. I used the same cupcake pans and ice-cream scoop as before to fill the cups. The batter rose up and over the edge of the cups. When I tried to remove the cupcakes from the pan, the spillage was so soft and moist it wanted to fall off and I lost most of it (which accounts for the sloppy appearance of the cupcakes in the pictures). The batter yielded about 26 cupcakes. I cut the baking time by about half.

This was my first attempt at pastry cream. I followed the recipe to the letter with the exception of the infusion of thyme. I infused it with orange peels as the recipe calls for and really liked the flavour it brought to the pastry cream. I did find the pastry cream rather sweet without the inclusion of the whipped cream. I think I liked the texture of the pastry cream better without the whipped cream, though I liked the flavour better afterward, as it was less sweet.

Eunice cuts the mid-section out of her top layer of cake, fills the void with pastry cream, and then covers it with the cubed cake. My problem was where to put the pastry cream in the cupcakes. I tried a small ice-cream scoop to hollow out the middle of the cupcake, but it was plastic and tore up the cake. I tried a plastic melon-baller which was slightly better but stuck to the cake. I also tried a "quarter-moon" shaped ice-cream scoop, but the sides weren't sharp enough and the scoop itself was a little too large. I finally settled on a teaspoon and that worked well. I ladeled the pastry cream into the hollow and capped it with the scoop of cake I removed.

Lastly is the chocolate ganache. Because I had at least half of the pastry cream left over, two pounds of semi-sweet and bitter-sweet chocolate seemed like a lot of ganache for two dozen or so cupcakes. I cut the recipe down by 1/3. I used only 1 stick of butter, about a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of whipping cream, but found the ganache too bitter. To compensate, I added about 1 cup of icing sugar. What I wound up with was very thick and only enough to cover about 18 cupcakes. Next time I would add a bit more whipping cream to thin out the ganache before assembling.

The verdict for this recipe is amazing. The cake is soft, supple and buttery, the pastry cream is decadent, the ganache velvety and, even with the addition of icing sugar, just enough to cut the sweetness of the cake. Though this cake is not for the calorie-wise, it is worth the splurge once in a while. I would most definitely try this recipe again, but as a cake. Thanks for sharing this with us, Eunice.

• Eunice Feller's Boston Cream Pie Recipe
• Bread & Chocolate (Eunice's Bakery's homepage)
• Throwdown with Bobby Flay's homepage

Eat Shrink and Be Merry's Must Bake Carrot Cake

For those of you who don't know, Eat Shrink and Be Merry is a show on the Canadian Food Network. It stars sisters Janet and Greta Podleski. They sample fat and calorie rich food and remodel it so that you can enjoy your favourite foods and still eat healthier (to learn more about the Podleskis or the show, see the Eat Shrink and Be Merry web site). I have tried a few of their recipes, but the one I'm reviewing today is their Must Bake Carrot Cake recipe with Orange-Cream Cheese Frosting.

I baked this cake exactly to the recipe (except I made cupcakes - small portions help with weight control as well) and it turned out phenomenal. The cake was so moist and light I was tempted to have two (so much for portion control). The orange in the frosting was an amazing addition, bringing another flavour profile to the cake.

Confessions: I had a problem with the consistency of the frosting- totally my fault. The original frosting recipe calls for a small quantity of frozen orange juice concentrate. Not wanting to purchase and open an entire can of frozen orange juice (it never occurred to me that I could drink the leftovers), I first tried orange extract in the recipe and was left with something that tasted like a cross between mouthwash and cough syrup. Thinking waste-not-want-not, I attempted triage by juicing the orange I had zested into the frosting. This helped the flavour immensely, but left me with something closer to a glaze than a frosting. No matter. It tasted wonderful, not at all tart, in spite of the cream cheese in the recipe.

The second time I made this recipe, the cake was once more splendid, but my orange had rolled out of the grocery bag and hid under the car seat until it was near dessicated. Another triage attempt, this time using the only citrus fruit I had in my fridge: a grapefruit. The frosting was okay, still more of a glaze and a little on the sour side, not the best thing I've ever made.

These cupcakes freeze well, too, so you can make a double recipe if you like and store them away until you feel for something a little sweet and only slightly decadent.

If you choose to make cupcakes rather than a layer cake, don't forget to adjust the bake time. I like to start with 12 minutes and bake in increments of 5 minutes from that point onward until a toothpick comes out clean.

•  Janet and Greta's Must Bake Carrot Cake with Orange-Cream Cheese Frosting