Boston Cream Pie is certainly not a pie but instead is a tender two-layered cake, with a luscious pastry cream filling topped with a dreamy chocolate glaze. So why is it called a pie?
What is the History of Boston Cream Pie?
In the nineteenth century, when Boston Cream Pie was born, many cakes were baked in shallow, straight-sided pans called Washington pie plates or jelly-cake tins. Pie tins and cake tins were the same thing. So the word “pie” stuck. The earliest Boston Cream Pies are from the late eighteen hundreds. They were two-layered cakes filled with pastry cream or custard and simply dusted on top with powdered sugar. Their signature chocolate icings weren’t created until much later, in the 1930s. Possibly earlier. The lag time between practice and print can be considerable. My recipe spans the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The cake, a hot milk sponge, is an oldie that combines the tenderness of a butter cake with the airiness of a sponge cake. It’s easy to make and tastes great. And instead of baking two layers, you bake one and split it. The pastry cream is a classic nineteenth century recipe made more modern and extra smooth with egg yolks and a little heavy cream. And the chocolate glaze is a popular twentieth century ganache—chocolate melted in heavy cream—which takes hardly any work at all. Boston Cream Pie is wonderful any time of the year and for any occasion. How about right now? It’s no surprise that in 1996 it was proclaimed the Official State Dessert of Massachusetts.