Zahra Cooks

I really like pretzels. Neil doesn’t really like them as I do. However, we both got along just fine with this pie because we both love peanut butter and Nutella. Oh the joys.

I’m a ginormous fan of cold pies. They’re so simple to put together and the only hard part is waiting for the pie to chill enough to eat.

Here’s what you need:

Peanut Butter and Nutella Pie

For the crust:

1 1/4 cup finely crushed pretzels. I used these lovely Honey Wheat ones but really, any ol’ pretzel would work.
2 tbsp brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp butter, melted

I absolutely love the honey wheat pretzels. They’re sweet but still pretzel-y enough to fill my pretzel needs.

Random fact: the SAT prep place that I went to for 2 years of my life provided these buckets of pretzels for the students. I now associate learning weird vocabulary with eating pretzels.

Getting back to what we’re all really here for,

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crush your pretzels until you have 1 1/4 cups worth. I had just enough. Whew.

2. Add in your brown sugar and pulse a few times until well combined.

3. Pour out into a bowl and add in the melted butter. Stir until all the crumbs are coated.

4. Pour the whole thing out into your 8″ pie dish and press down with the bottom of a measuring cup until you have a tight crust. Set in the oven to bake for 8-10 minutes.

Now, as the crust sets, work on the filling.

For the Peanut Butter Nutella filling:

1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup milk
About 1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup Nutella

1. Combine the cream cheese with the powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

Oh girl, it’s lovely.

2. Mix the peanut butter right in as well. Add in the milk after the peanut butter’s well combined and beat until totally smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, Combine the whipping cream with the vanilla and beat until stiff peaks form.

4. Fold in the whipped cream into the peanut butter filling until all the ingredients are well combined.

5. Now drop in your Nutella in one dollop.

6. Stir carefully just to get lovely ribbons of Nutella throughout. You don’t want it totally mixed in.

7. Spread over your pretzel pie crust and set in the refrigerator for about an hour to set and chill.

The end result is a very light-tasting peanut butter pie with lots of lovely Nutella flavors throughout. Enjoy!

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As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve never had real Boston Cream Pie. So making a Boston Cream Pie on Boston Cream Pie Day was a bit of a challenge.

However, who better to tell me how to make such an involved dish than Irma Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking?

I used her very detailed (and very tedious) directions to the T, and voila!

Now it’s my turn to share this with you.

Here goes.

Boston Cream Pie

For the Pastry Cream:

1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp all purpose flour
Scant (slightly less than) 3 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

2. Sift the flour and the cornstarch together and add to the yolk mixture. The end result you’re looking for is a smooth, paste-like batter.

It’ll look something like this. With less of a mess if you’re not me. Set that aside.

3. In a saucepan, bring the milk to an almost-boil. What’s an almost-boil? It’s when the milk gets all foamy but hasn’t yet started to rumble. It’ll look something like that. Remove from heat.

4. Now, slowly add the milk to the egg yolk mixture. Do this slowly because you don’t want to cook the egg like that and get scrambled eggs in your cream.

5. Put the whole shabang back into the saucepan. Over medium heat, you want to cook the mixture, whisking quite frequently. You want it as smooth as possible, but don’t stress over the itty bumps that’ll appear. Bring to a slow boil and remove from heat. Set in a clean bowl and refrigerate until assembly time.

Onto the sponge cake.

For the Sponge Cake:

5 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup cake flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour two 8″ cake pans. Separate three eggs. In the bowl to the left are my 3 egg whites. In the bowl to the right are 3 egg yolks PLUS the two other full eggs. Set them aside until they reach room temperature (about 30 minutes).

2. I don’t ever have cake flour on hand so here’s what you can do. Place the 1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup of all purpose flour. Remove 1 tablespoon of that flour and replace it with cornstarch. Now add in the baking powder and salt.

3. Drop in 6 tablespoons of your sugar into the egg yolk bowl and beat until light in color and the mixture has thickened. Then, add in the vanilla.

4. Wash the beaters on your mixer and then go to the bowl with the egg whites in it. Add in the cream of tartar and beat it until it’s starting to get very very foamy but hasn’t thickened yet. At that point, add in the rest of your sugar until you get “moist peaks”. I guessed that when I got the result in the above picture, I’d achieved those “moist peaks”.

5. Gently fold in some of the egg white mixture into the egg yolk batter to lighten it up a bit. Then, sift half of the flour mixture and add it to the egg yolk batter. Fold in the rest of the egg whites and fold the whole thing together until most of the flour has disappeared.

6. Sift in the rest of the flour mixture and fold the entire batter until the flour has disappeared. Do NOT overmix!!!

7. Divide the batter between the two pans and set on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove and let cool.

Chocolate Glaze:

4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp unsalted butter

*Start on this step when you’re ready to assemble the entire cake. The glaze will thicken considerably as it sits and it won’t be that spreadable if you make it too far in advance!

1. Over medium heat, heat the heavy cream and butter until boiling.

2. Remove from heat and pour over chocolate pieces. Let it sit for about a minute.

3. Mix the glaze until all the pieces have melted and the mixture has thickened. Set aside.

Assembly!

Invert one of the layers onto your “platter”. In my case, plate. All casual like. We’re all friends here.

Cover with the chilled pastry cream. Spread as evenly as you can.

Now bring on the other layer!

Set the layer on top of the cream and then, starting in the center, pour the entire glaze out. Start spreading the glaze from the middle out to the edges allowing it to drip down the sides for more drama.

We love us some drama. Melodrama. Mama drama. Obama mama drama. I’m getting carried away here.

Let the whole thing chillax for a bit in the fridge. 20-30 minutes should do it.

Then, you’ll have a fabulously glossy topped Boston Cream Pie! Congratulations and Happy Boston Cream Pie Day!

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