Sasha's Kitchen: Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

I've been on a bit of a kick recently making pies (with the start of pie season), which had led me to try and create some pie themed cupcakes. Recently, I baked an apple pie and a strawberry rhubarb pie, followed by some fabulous key lime pie cupcakes, complete with a graham cracker crust. The key lime pie cupcakes were just like a bite of the real thing, packed into a cute cupcake. So I decided that I could also recreate a Boston Cream Pie in cupcake form. These were just as good too! There are four components - a shortbread crust, a vanilla cupcake, a basic pastry cream filling and a fabulous light whipped chocolate frosting. Its really hard to say, but these are pretty high up there on my list of cupcakes I've made in terms of taste. Another trick - when most people fill cupcakes, they cut off the top, add the filling and reattach the top. Yet, this often makes the cupcake a bit messier to eat. Instead, I used a fairly thin fitted pastry tip and poked it into the top of the cupcake and "injected" the pastry cream into the cupcake. This works just fun and as you can see from the cross section photo, distributed the filling well inside the cupcake.

Sasha's Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Crust:

3/4 cup pulverized shortbread cookies

2 T sugar

3 T melted butter

Vanilla Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 stick of butter

3 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup of  milk

Pastry Cream Filling:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

4 egg yolks

1/3 cups sugar

pinch salt

4 tsp cornstarch

Chocolate Fudge Frosting: (adopted from this recipe as inspiration only to do it with melted chocolate rather than cocoa powder)

6 T butter

4 cups confectioner's sugar

1/3 cup to 1/2 cup milk

3 oz melted semisweet chocolate

First make the crusts. Melt the butter and combine with the sugar and pulverized shortbread cookies. Line paper liners for cupcakes with about a teaspoon and press to form a crust. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes until it sets only.

To make the cupcake batter, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer until fairly smooth, for about two minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Then alternate beating in the milk and the dry ingredients until smooth and well combined. Fill the cupcakes 3/4 of the way to the top, and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes (the time depends on your oven) until a toothpick comes out clean, but take out before you see any browning action on the cupcake tops, as you don't want to burn them.

Allow the cupcakes to cool while preparing the pastry cream filling. Warm the heavy cream in a sauce pan. Combine the sugar, egg yolks, salt and cornstarch in a separate bowl. Combine over heat until it thickens into a custard, and stir in the vanilla towards the end. Chill for about 30 minutes before using.

Using a fairly thin tip (but not a micro thin tip) pastry tip attached to a pastry bag, pierce the top of each cupcake and squeeze the filling into the center of the cupcakes, using my "injection" technique. Don't worry if some oozes out the top as you will be covering that with frosting.

Now, the best part of these cupcakes is the frosting. I have made rich chocolate frostings with cocoa powder in the past, which are great, but a bit too intense for my taste. This is just the perfect, light chocolate whipped frosting! Beat the butter with the confectioner's sugar for several minutes on high speed in your mixer. Add 3 oz of the melted chocolate and the milk and beat until a nice frosting forms. Add the milk 1/4 cup at a time until the frosting reaches your desired consistency. I added between 1/3 and 1/2 of a cup of skim milk. Frost the cupcakes using a frosting bag with a fluted tip and devour immediately!

Sasha's Kitchen: Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Sasha's Kitchen: Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

These may be one of my favorite batches of cupcakes yet. They taste *exactly* like a little bit of key lime pie, which from my point of view, is just a little bit of heaven packed into a cupcake. I've kind of gone onto this kick of making a lot of pies lately. Click here for my apple pie, and a strawberry rhubarb pie will be posted soon. But what if I could convert each of these delicious pies into bite sized cupcakes that had the essence of each pie? Stay tuned for more of these recipes, because I really think they work out well.  As weird as it sounds, there's nothing better than crust on a cupcake because it breaks up the cupcake so you don't have too much of the same thing, which is the whole point of eating cupcake (rather than cake) in the first place. I decorated some of the cupcakes by making two peas in a peapod out of fondant, but that really is not part of the key lime theme, as I was just having some fun. I can't wait to try out the Boston Cream Pie cupcakes after Passover ends to continue with the pie-as-cupcake trend.

Sasha's Key Lime Pie Cupcakes (makes about 15)
Graham Cracker Crust
3/4 cups pulverized graham crackers
2 T granulated sugar
3 T melted butter

Key Lime Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 T baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup of butter at room temperature (about 2/3 of a stick)
3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 T lime zest
2 T T key lime juice (you can buy Key Lime Juice at Whole Foods)

Key Lime Pie Pastry Filling
5 oz mascarpone cheese or regular cream cheese
3 oz key lime juice
3 oz sweetened condensed milk

Key Lime Frosting
1 1/2 sticks of butter at room temperature
1 small box of confectioner's sugar (about 3-4 cups)
3 T key lime juice
drop of green or yellow gel-based food coloring

Decorations (optional)
Green fondant
white fondant
black food marker

First, combine the ingredients for the crust and press about 1 Tablespoon of the graham cracker mixture into each mold in a cupcake tray filled with cupcake liners. Bake at 300 for about 12 minutes until slightly firm.  Next, prepare the key lime cupcake mixture. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat the butter and sugar on medium high speed in a stand mixer for about three minutes. Then beat in the eggs. Add the lime zest and mix throughout. Then alternate adding the buttermilk and dry ingredients, and finally add the key lime juice at then end. Divide among the cupcakes, filling each about 3/4 of the way to the top. Bake at 350 for about 25-30 minutes (this time depends on how hot your oven runs) until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely.

While the cupcakes are baking, make the key lime pastry cream, by blending the key lime juice, condensed milk and cream cheese or mascarpone. Chill for about 45 minutes before using. Then, once the cupcakes are cool, use a fine tip attached to a pastry bag to "inject" the key lime pastry cream into the center of each cupcake.

Next, beat together the ingredients for the frosting and dye the frosting with a gel base food coloring - generally either green or yellow. Use a frosting bag to apply the frosting to each cupcake.

Key lime pie coming up - and yes, they taste just like a little bite of the best key lime pie ever!

Sasha's Kitchen: Key Lime Pie Cupcakes