Boston Cream Pie from the Bakehouse
A 19th-century New England classic winning modern-day fans
Nearly everyone, it seems, has a serious affection for this 19th-century sweet treat.Serious Eats calls Boston cream pie “an iconic American dessert.” The New York Times dubs it “an American classic.” A few years ago, food writer and baker David Lebowitz shared, “Boston cream pie is one of my favorite desserts of all time.” And nearly three decades ago now, the Times’ Donna St. George reported that Boston cream pie
has been honored by the Massachusetts legislature. It has been filmed for the evening news. It has graced the governor’s plate and fork. And it now beckons anew from restaurant menus.
These are glory days for the long-overlooked Boston cream pie.
Over the years, Boston cream pie has quietly built an ever-more-loyal following at the Bakehouse. I’m in the club! Its lovely, light texture makes it one of my favorite Bakehouse desserts this time of year.
While the name implies a creamy filling baked into a pie shell, the reality of Boston cream pie is something else altogether. Evan Jones, in his classic cookbook, American Food, said Boston cream pie is “really a cake disguised by this misnomer [that] remains unexplained.” One possible explanation is that the name originated in an era when cakes and pies were prepared in pretty much the same pans, and the words “cake” and “pie” were used interchangeably.
Back in 1856, the then newly opened Parker House Hotel in Boston had a chef from France, Augustine François Anezin, who developed the dessert we know now as Boston cream pie. His technique of pouring chocolate over the top of a custard cake was quite an innovation at the time, adding a new twist to what every other local pastry chef had been doing previously. David Lebowitz says the original was dusted with powdered sugar, not dark chocolate … but the chocolate seems to be an addition that almost no one wants to argue about!
The moist, butter-rich layer cake was then still a relatively new phenomenon in the world of pastries; it was only with the introduction of baking powder 20 years after Anezin worked his magic that such cakes became common, even in upscale settings.
Writing in The New York Times, Samantha Seneviratne reminds me that it’s the skill of our Bakehouse bakers that makes Boston cream pie possible: “How you whip the eggs and the sugar is critical, as the tiny air bubbles they produce add lift to the finished product”—one more good reason that I, for one, will be buying mine at the Bakeshop and not trying to make it at home.
The way we put it together at the Bakehouse, the finished product consists of two layers of moist vanilla chiffon cake filled with fresh vanilla bean pastry cream, covered with a lovely, thin layer of vanilla buttercream and then, last but not least, rich dark chocolate ganache. Take one bite, and you’ll know why it has a whole state so devoted to it. Plus it goes great with the new Tanzania coffee that’s our Roaster’s Pick this month!
P.S. Want to bake Boston cream pie in your kitchen? The recipe is in the Zingerman’s Bakehouse cookbook!
P.P.S. Even better still, come take a class at BAKE!
