use real butter

Recipe: bostini cream pie

This month, I joined the Daring Bakers which has exploded as far as membership goes. The Daring Bakers is an online community of people who bake a recipe selected by a host each month, and then post about the experience and the outcome on the same day. Our host was Mary of alpineberry who chose Bostini Cream Pie for this month’s DB challenge, and today is the day everyone is posting. Go to the blogroll to see everyone’s fine creations!

The Bostini is a variation on an old favorite, the Boston cream pie. The main components are: pastry cream, orange chiffon cake, and chocolate glaze. So I began with the pastry cream, because I looooove pastry cream. Love to eat it, love to make it.

crème patisserie: mixing in the yolks

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate ice cream

Congratulations to my pals, Amos and Louie, on the birth of their baby girl! Amos is one of my oldest friends (oldest as in I’ve known her longer than most friends – she’s not old… we’re the same age because we share the same birth date). Since both Amos and Louie love chocolate and love ice cream – it’s almost a genetic guarantee (I jest, I jest! Biogeeks, please be seated!) that little Alejandra will too. I recently made a batch of teh best homemade chocolate ice cream evar. Smooth, creamy, rich, and most of all: chocolaty. What better way to celebrate Alejandra’s arrival than with a post on chocolate ice cream.

it begins with a little cocoa and cream

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate hazelnut petits fours glacés

Sometimes it takes me a few iterations to realize that I hate something… Humans have an amazing capacity for blocking out bad experiences like relationships, suffering, and making petits fours glacés. I’d like to think my inspiration was spurred on by the extra sheet of vanilla chiffon cake I had in my freezer from last time, but I honestly believe I had forgotten that I uttered the words, “I’m never making these again!” just over a month ago.

It’s the same story with a slightly different cast – a cast that probably appeals to more people because it includes our friends chocolate and hazelnut.

weighing hazelnut paste

**Jump for more butter**