Boston Cream Pie

Boston cream pie is a cake with a curious name. Some trace its origin to Boston’s Parker House Hotel, now called the Omni Parker House, circa 1860. As that story goes, the hotel’s French pastry chef wanted to bake a cake but only had access to pie tins. He sandwiched vanilla cake layers with cream filling, covered the whole thing in a dark chocolate glaze, and created a misnamed legend. Other historians note, however, that many people used the terms cake and pie interchangeably in the 19th century. Complicating things further, other restaurant menus from the era include similarly named cake recipes, including American pudding pie and Washington pie. Whatever its origin, the new recipe had staying power. In 1958, nearly a century after the cake recipe debuted, Betty Crocker introduced a Boston cream pie cake mix, and it remained in production until the 1990s. In 1996 a group of high school students successfully sponsored a bill to make the Boston cream pie the official state dessert of Massachusetts.

Culinary trends come and go, but the Boston cream pie endures, inspiring everything from cupcakes to a dessert cocktail served at the Omni Parker House’s Last Hurrah Bar. This classic version combines a vanilla custard filling with layers of soft, buttery yellow cake and dark chocolate ganache enriched with heavy cream. Call it old-fashioned or an all-American institution; just don’t call it Boston cream cake.

This recipe was adapted for style from ‘Zoë Bakes Cakes’ by Zoë François. Buy the full book on Amazon.