Boston Cream Pie

Boston cream pie is an American dessert in which a thick layer of custard is sandwiched between two soft cakes and the top is covered with chocolate. There is no pastry shell. Pale cake, yellow cream and a brown topping are layered, and in each mouthful of a slice, the soft base and the cool filling come together with the deep flavor of chocolate. Though made with cake, it is called a pie, and it is known as a signature dessert of the Parker House, a hotel in Boston.

Soft cake that can be cut with a fork

Some versions use a sponge in which the egg whites and yolks are whipped separately and combined, and then flour and melted butter are added. Baked as a single cake, cooled and sliced horizontally, it yields two layers of the same crumb.

Some home recipes (the ingredient proportions and method) whip eggs and sugar, add oil and flour, and then combine hot milk and butter. In this case, the soft batter is divided between two round pans, baked and cooled thoroughly. Both are methods for making a soft cake that holds its shape even with thick custard between the layers and can be cut with a fork.

Eiko Tsuchida, who spent her childhood in the United States, recalls that even when she made the Boston cream pie she remembered by following a cookbook exactly, the texture of the cake was different. Later, using a yellow cake mix bought in North America brought the flavor closer to her memory. Even under the same name, there are cakes made from scratch at home and cakes made with store-bought mixes.

Custard firm enough to sandwich, ganache covering the top

The filling is a custard made by cooking milk, eggs, sugar, starch and so on. Adding warm milk to the eggs a little at a time before returning the mixture to the pan helps prevent part of the egg from setting on its own. It is heated through while being stirred, and the starch gives it a thickness that keeps it from running.

The custard is cooled with its surface covered to prevent a skin from forming, then spread evenly over the cooled cake. Adding rum or vanilla brings the aroma of spirits or vanilla to the flavor of milk and eggs. Layering after both the cake and the cream have cooled thoroughly helps the layers hold.

When ganache is used for the topping, chocolate and fresh cream are combined until smooth, cooled slightly and poured over. The deep flavor covering the top contrasts with the gentle custard.

Boston cream pie with cream sandwiched between sponge layers and a chocolate topping poured over. Photo: GorillaWarfare, 2019-03-29, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downsized version from the source; no additional processing.

The name “pie” for cakes from shallow round pans

In 19th-century America there was Washington pie, in which cakes baked in shallow round pans were layered with jam or the like between them. This is the background to why the name pie remains on this cake-based dessert as well. The Boston cream pie in the 1878 Granite Iron Ware Cook Book has custard between the layers but no chocolate topping. In Maria Parloa’s 1887 cookbook, under the alternative name chocolate cream pie, all three elements come together: butter cake, vanilla custard and chocolate icing. The dessert’s name and its present-day combination are thus recorded in separate printed sources.

The creation story handed down at the Parker House

Boston’s Parker House is a hotel opened by Harvey Parker in 1855. Omni, the company that operates it, says that the chef Augustine François Anezin and the kitchen added chocolate—at the time more often used for drinks and the like—as an icing to sponge cake and vanilla custard. According to this origin story from the hotel, it was at first called “Parker House Chocolate Cream Pie.”

The year in which Anezin perfected the three-layer dessert as it is known today is not clear. In late-19th-century cookbooks, the dessert with custard between the layers and the one that also had chocolate icing were recorded under different names.

The hotel’s decoration and chocolate toppings for home kitchens

The hotel’s traditional recipe includes rum-flavored cream, a topping of chocolate and white fondant, and roasted almonds on the sides. In another recipe the hotel currently publishes, white chocolate is swirled over the ganache and the tip of a knife is drawn from the center outward to create a spiderweb pattern. Even at the same hotel, the way it is finished has changed.

In the mid-20th century, cake mixes spread it to homes as well. Even when a simple chocolate topping took the place of the elaborate icing, the combination of cake, custard and chocolate remained. Today it is also designated the official state dessert of Massachusetts.

The Boston name lives on in Yokohama

At Hamashiman in Isezakicho, Yokohama, Boston cream pie has long been a signature item. According to the shop’s own introduction, it began selling Western-style confections in 1957 after bringing in a pastry chef who had worked on passenger ships on international routes. A customer who ate this dessert both at the Boston hotel and at the Yokohama shop in 2012 wrote that the Yokohama version contained plenty of fresh cream and that its sponge was light and fluffy. Even a dessert of the same name that crossed the sea has methods and flavors that differ from shop to shop.

Glossary