The Big Cookie Project: Week 38

Yesterday was a "pie" kind of day. My cooking started off with a chicken pot pie, and the most horrible 10 lb. bag of frozen chicken leg quarters. Greg bought it (on sale of course) for the purpose of using it in a pot pie. The only problem was I didn't need 10 lbs. in one chicken pot pie, and I didn't want to thaw all 10 pounds. So, Greg had the solution of just running hot water over the bag and letting some of the ice melt and the pieces would EASILY come apart. I did the above directions, but not one piece of chicken budged. Since it was still in the bag I went all "gladiator" on it. If you were driving by my house yesterday you would have seen me throwing this bag of chicken very hard on the driveway...repeatedly. It was a pretty funny scene, but still no chicken budged. I repeated the above process until the chicken was beyond the point of putting back in the freezer, so now I have an abundance of raw chicken in my fridge.
Coming off of my tangent, and back to the important pie of the day...Boston Cream Pie!! I looked through numerous cookbooks trying to find a recipe that contained ingredients that I had on-hand, but was running in to the problem of every recipe needing some kind of nuts (which I didn't have). I DID have all the ingredients for Boston Cream Pie, which seemed surprising to me. I thought for some reason it would have some crazy ingredients since this seemed like a "fancy" dessert to me...maybe it's just me being weird. It's a long recipe due to 3 different recipes: the cake, the custard and the glaze. Enjoy the recipe!
HERSHEY'S CLASSIC BOSTON CREAM PIE
INGREDIENTS:
CAKE:
1/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
RICH FILLING RECIPE:
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups milk
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 Tbsp. butter or margarine
1 tsp. vanilla extract
***Stir together sugar and cornstarch in medium saucepan; graduall add milk and egg yolds, stirring until blended. cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until misture comes to a boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add butter and vanilla. Cover, refrigerate several hours until cold.
(You really do have to stir constantly, milk will burn on the bottom of the saucepan. When it starts to boil it will get thicker very quick, it surprised me a little bit)
DARK COCOA GLAZE:
3 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine
3 Tbsp. Hershey's cocoa
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
***Heat water and butter in small saucepan over medium heat until mixture come to a boil; remove from heat. Immediately stir in cocoa. Gradually add powdered sugar and vanilla, beating with whisk until smooth and of desired consistency; cool slightly DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat oven to 35o degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 inch round baking pan
2. For the cake: Beat shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla in large mixer bowl untiil fluffy. Stir togethe flour, baking powder and salt; add alternately with milk to shortening mixture, beating well after each addition. Pour batter in to pan.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until knife comes out clean. Cool completely.
4. With a serrated knife, cut cake in half horizontally. Place one layer, cut side up, on a serving plate; spread with prepared filling. Top with remaining layer, cut side down. Spread the dark cocoa glaze allowing glaze to run down sides . Refrigerate several hours or until cold. Refrigerate leftover pie.

Here's the end product!! I had a little spillage with my glaze, but somehow it mysteriously disappeared when Greg entered the kitchen. The glaze tastes exactly like the stuff on a chocolate covered donut, it was pretty good. All 3 components tasted okay separately, but together they tasted great! If you've never done this kind, you should definitely try it!

Happy Baking!