Think about the best cupcake you've ever had. The frosting to cake ratio was probably good, but could still use work. The cake was maybe a little dry. Or perhaps it was too hard to eat and fell apart everywhere, causing distress and sadness.
I'm here to solve cupcake problems with the Boston Cream Pie Cupcake. If you haven't had it, put it on your bucket list: this cupcake has custard inside!
Custard is one of those things that I feel like people don't talk about enough. It's loaded with vanilla so it smells amazing, it’s fluffy, and can make your plain white bread infinitely better. As delicious as it is, though, the downside is that it’s a pain to make. It burns easily, and requires lots of stirring and standing around by the pot. I played a game on my phone with my non-stirring hand while I made it, but I would advise against that. Also, if you would like to attempt it, make sure you know how to separate egg yolks from the whites first.
Another amazing thing about this recipe is leftovers. Usually, leftovers in recipes are just a burden, like “now I have too much frosting and nothing to eat it with”. Unless you’re into eating straight frosting, which is fine as well. But with this recipe, you have to cut out the centers of the cupcakes in order to have a little pocket to put the custard in. This leaves you with a lot of little chunks of cake to dip into your leftover custard, plus the leftover frosting. Super mini cupcakes while you make your real cupcakes!
Unfortunately, like the cake pops, the frosting didn’t go very well. Piping it is harder than it seems, because you have to get the frosting to the precisely right temperature where it’s not too soft so that it’ll melt down and not keep its shape (see the picture above), but not too hard so that it won’t come out of the piping bag.
Practice makes perfect, though, and more custard makes more happy. Click here for the recipe!