Thanksgiving Top Chef Cook-off with Chocolate-Cayenne Cocktail Cookies on the 50th Day

  Page 164 in the November 2011 issue of Food and Wine: Chocolate-Cayenne Cocktail Cookies! This blog has reached the 50th day half-way point with these snappy little treasures. While the Top Chef prize went to a pumpkin cheesecake baker with a beautiful singing voice, which I think certainly swayed the judges, this unusual pastry was really in a class by itself: salty-sweet hors d'oeuvre cookies.  Can't wait to make these again!

Days 48 and 49, Boston Cream Pie

    

     What's the best layer cake for Boston Cream Pie?  Well, that all depends. 
     If you feel there's never enough chocolate in your world, Michele's Sin City Chocolate Cake layers will get you there, to a more-chocolate universe. We loved that. 
      If you're a BCP purist like my friend L., make Michele's One Two Three Four Golden Layers,  page 156 in  150 Chocolate Cakes.  We  loved that too, as did L. and her family.   Both times I used Jurgen's Chocolate Glaze - again from Michele's book.  This is a superb, delicious, shiny glaze.  And both times the essential cream was New Basics pastry cream, page 653 in The New Basics Cookbook, an especially rich and gooey filling.