Just Dessert ?

Following this recipe, there is an explanation about the choice of the post title.

It's been awhile since I've posted a recipe. There's a few many reasons, but mostly as there's so many recipes in cookbooks and online. Nearly everyone has a favorite, better or new recipe.

Our favorite sweet treat, as many readers of this blog may know, is ice cream🍦. However, we have also been known to enjoy other delights, including some made at home.

Boston Cream Cake

Dessert 🥧 🍮 is a food group, isn't it?

 

That said, this post is for a recipe that turned out to be a not hard to prepare, delicious and a thoroughly enjoyed treat. That was the consensus of our dominoes playing friends who recently came for dinner and for dessert. 

If you enjoy Boston Cream Pie, this is not that recipe. Instead, this recipe is for a Boston Cream Cake recently featured in a local supermarket's monthly food magazine. 

While it was made at home, not everything was home made, for example the cake mix which was purchased at the grocery store. Other ingredients were purchased there too, aside from some that we (and you) may already have available like dark chocolate morsels (always stocked for chocolate chip cookies), salt, vanilla extract and honey (used as a corn syrup substitute). Heavy cream is not something usually purchased, but for the sake of trying this recipe, it was bought and leftovers would up in a mac and cheese recipe.

If you need a large sheet cake for a get together and want to give it a try, here's the recipe. 

(Of course, you could always make it for a smaller gathering with leftovers.)

Boston Cream Cake in 9x13 glass dish

Boston Cream Cake

Active Time — 45 min 
Total — 1 hr 20 min (plus chilling time)

Servings — 16

Cake Ingredients

• 1 (15.25 oz) yellow cake mix
• 1 C water
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
• 1 (3.4 oz) box instant vanilla pudding)
• 1-2/3 C heavy cream
• 1/2 C milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Ganache Ingredients

• 1-1/3 C dark chocolate morsels (about 8 oz)
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 C heavy cream
• 2 tsp light corn syrup (can substitute honey or maple syrup)
• Pinch of salt

Center a rack in oven and heat to 350°F.  

Grease a 9x13 baking pan/glass dish and set aside.

Cake: In medium bowl, whisk cake mix, water, eggs, and oil until smooth. Transfer to prepared pan, smooth top and bake until a toothpick inserted in cake center comes out clean (follow baking times on cake mix box), rotate halfway through total bake time.

After removing from oven, cool cake 5 minutes, then use handle of wooden spoon to poke holes all over the cake, spacing about 1 inch apart and poking down to bottom of pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk pudding mix, heavy cream, milk and vanilla until combined, about 30 seconds. Immediately pour mixture onto warm cake and spread into an even layer, pressing gently into holes. Refrigerate until pudding is set, 1 to 2 hours.

Ganache: Combine chocolate morsels and vanilla in a medium bowl and set aside. In a small saucepan, bring heavy cream, corn syrup (or substitute), and salt to a simmer. Pour over chocolate morsels and let sit 2 minutes without stirring.

Stir chocolate mixture until smooth and glossy, pour over chilled cake and spread into even layer. Refrigerate until ganache is set, about 1 hour, before serving. Cut, serve and enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

(Per serving: 440 cal, 30g fat, 75mg chol, 340mg sod 40g carb, 1g fiber, 25g sugar, 4g protein)

🍰  🍨  🥮  🧁  🍧

After titling this post, I was curious about the phrase often heard as just deserts.

No, I didn't omit a letter in deserts above. Despite its pronunciation, just deserts, with a single middle S, is the proper spelling for the phrase meaning the punishment that one deserves. The punishment sense had been in use for several hundred years by the time, the after-dinner word for sweets, dessert, was adopted around 1600.

But as most modern English speakers are unfamiliar with the older sense of desert, the phrase is often written as just desserts.

Using just desserts isn't a serious writing error, and it's much more common than just deserts in 21st-century texts. That said, there are grammarists who consider it wrong usage. Whether or not this is important is for individual users to decide.

For the purpose of this post, just dessert, worked out very sweet for me.