bostonish baked beans and blueberry parfait
today, for a cookout in our old neighborhood, i spent the morning in the kitchen.
i started by baking the pound cake, (from scratch of course), using up the last of the eggs, as the base for the parfait. pound cake is so simple -- a pound of butter, a pound of flour (4 cups, sifted), a pound of sugar (2 cups), and a pound(?) of eggs (10).
technically, you're supposed to melt the butter and then add the flour till it's mealy, then add the beaten eggs and sugar, but i never do it that way. i always cream the butter and sugar, then add the beaten eggs, and then work in the flour. the batter is thick and yellow, and pours fairly well into 2 loaf pans. 350 degrees for an hour and 15 minutes.
while that was in the oven, i made my morning coffee and gathered the ingredients (and pans) for the beans and the rest of the parfait.
so that i could have more time to cook, when the cakes were done and i had turned them onto a cooling rack, i slid a rack filled with bacon (for the beans) onto a sheet pan and threw it in the oven at 400 degrees. about 22 minutes till it was good and crispy. i also unloaded and reloaded and started the dishwasher during that time.
i used one family sized can of bush's boston baked beans and another of their regular baked beans, and mixed them in a (3? 4? quart) disposable casserole dish. i debated which barbecue sauce to add to the mix (we had quite a variety) and settled on a bottle of brown sugar bbq, which was nice and dark, and worked with the molasses and brown sugar flavors i already had going.
by the time the bacon was done, i'd had my second cup of coffee and had time to check my parfait recipe to make sure i was ready, and had cut the pound cake into 1/2" cubes to line the bottom of a disposable 9x12 roasting pan.
the bacon was nice and crispy and i crumbled that on top of the beans, and stirred it in, and then added the barbecue sauce. 2 hours, 300 degrees. topped with french's fried onions in the last 10 minutes. baked beans to serve 15 people -- cost? $4.50 total. kick ass.
meanwhile, it was time to get working on the blueberry parfait. i already had the base, but it was time to make the rum sauce. 1/2 stick of butter (melted), 1 cup confectioners sugar, 1 tsp imitation rum extract, and 4 tbsp water, whisked together. if you mash the cake cubes together a little, it makes a more uniform layer, and then you slowly pour the rum sauce over the cake.
the next layer was two small bottles of all-fruit type seedless blueberry preserves, heated in the microwave till it was pourable, and then evenly spread over the rum-soaked cubes.
vanilla pudding (4 cups) became the next layer, and i added a fourth layer of fat-free whipped topping, which then got covered with a layer of fresh blueberries.
the dessert was more expensive than the side dish, with blueberries, pudding, whipped topping, and eggs being about $6 altogether, and the rest all being from the pantry, i'd say it was probably $7.50 worth of ingredients.