Happy Birthday Nick

We celebrated Nick's birthday last night. We took him to Joe Morley's, our favorite barbecue restaurant. Then we went back to our house where we enjoyed a rock band tour and these fun little chocolate cakes filled with custard. I used cute pans with a little indentation for filling. Using the custard recipe below and a dark chocolate cake mix, these fun cakes were pretty simple to make.


Custard:
2/3 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
4 egg yolks
2 cups milk
1 envelope, plus 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup water
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

To make the custard filling: First place the sugar and cornstarch in a small to medium pan. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks and milk together. Whisk them into the sugar and starch mixture in the pan. Cook this over low heat and gradually increase to a medium heat bringing the mixture to a boil. The mixture will bubble slowly. Whisk this bubbling mixture for 3 to 4 minutes and remove from heat.

Soak the gelatin in a 1/4 cup of warm water for 5 minutes. Add gelatin mixture to hot custard and whisk. Set aside to cool in a clean bowl. Cover with plastic to keep mixture from crusting and refrigerate until cool.

After mixture has cooled, whip cream, sugar, and vanilla to medium peaks. Fold whipped cream into cooled custard. Make sure to whisk custard to creamy stage before gradually folding in whipping cream. Refrigerate until ready to fill the little cakes.