Last Tuesday saw the marvelous return of an out-of-town house favorite: Bradley. As mentioned in relation to his other recent visit, he's much closer now, thanks to the wise hiring decision of Appalachian State University. It will be a high priority to try to be at the ready whenever he says he's got time to run down here from Boone. For our dinner, I'd prepped a few days before a hearty bolognese sauce, and then tucked it away to set up for a day or so. Leading up to dinnertime, I boiled the pappardelle to serve as the wide-noodled receivers of that meaty goodness. A mess of salad went along with the main feature, with a choice of homemade Thousand Island or honey mustard dressings.
With high hopes and great anticipation, I chose a new recipe trial for dessert: Boston Cream Pie. It was a multi-day affair to put it together, beginning with pastry cream that I whipped up and stowed in the fridge on Sunday. On Monday night, I made the cake layers, giving them time to cool before letting them join the pastry cream for an overnight chill. Tuesday morning I assembled the cake and put it back in the fridge. Later that morning, I made the ganache for the topping, applied it, and once more put it away to fully chill before serving that night after dinner.
This version was a disappointment, which may have in part been the fault of my lesser kitchen equipment. The sweet cake layers were tasty but had gone a bit dry, becoming battle-pitched in resisting the slicing and serving function required to present it to the diners. I'll give kudos to the pastry cream and ganache, though: I was sold on 'em both.
And why this dessert? Well, the latest D&D dice roll to force more variety in kitchen endeavors dictated an April 2011 issue of either Cooking Light or Quick Cooking magazines...but I only have issues of those from around 2003. My rule is to go either to my top-tier and fullest sets—Cook’s Illustrated or Cook’s Country—for any dice roll misfires like this, and CI won out. Hence, this choice of Boston Cream Pie.
"Homemade Bolognese Sauce," from Holly Nilsson of SpendwithPennies.com. [Published 17 January 2023]
"Thousand Island Dressing," which was based on a version from Graybert on GeniusKitchen.com.
“Boston Cream Pie,” by Andrea Geary. In Cook’s Illustrated, Number 109 [March & April 2011], p. 14-15.
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