This Boston Cream Pie Is So Good I’ve Made It 5 Weeks in a Row
I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t taste Boston Cream Pie — I’m not talking about a cheater one using a box of vanilla pudding — until I made our recipe last year. For years as a food editor I tempted readers with hack-y Boston Cream-inspired recipes: cupcakes stuffed with vanilla pudding and topped with ganache! No-bake Boston Cream cheesecake! The ideas were undoubtedly fun, but far from the classic.
The iconic Boston Cream Pie (the official dessert of Massachusetts, did you know?!) doesn’t rely on store-bought shortcuts. It has three signature components: a hot milk or sponge cake, pastry cream, and chocolate ganache. When layered together, the results are total dessert bliss. And I have to state the obvious: There’s no pie-making here. Despite the name, which comes from the 1800s pie tin in which the dessert was originally baked, Boston Cream Pie is actually an impossibly fluffy cake.
The Ding Dong Cake I wrote about a few weeks back (and is now one of my favorite desserts to make for someone’s birthday) is a true labor of love. Boston Cream Pie lives in a similar world of flavors and layers, but is easier to prepare.
Get the recipe: Boston Cream Pie
How to Make a Boston Cream Pie
The cake is a tad more fussy than you might be used to because it’s the style bakers refer to as a “hot milk” cake. You heat up a mixture of whole milk and butter and add that to your mixer in a steady stream. Our deputy food editor, Kristina, always assures me that there isn’t a more foolproof cake recipe to have in your backpocket than this one.
You also make a pastry cream, which is the luscious (ugh, I despise this word but sometimes there’s nothing better to describe!) layer between the cakes that people go wild over. Luckily for us, Kristina’s approach is much more straightforward than other crème pâtissières out there. You just have to whisk together the ingredients, bring to a boil, and simmer for 1 minute (no tempering of eggs — the worst!).
Lastly, you have the ganache, which stays perfectly classic: equal parts bittersweet chocolate to heavy cream with a pinch of salt.
What Makes the Boston Cream Pie So Good
Boston Cream Pie is old-school in the best way. It’s humble in nature, with its fluffy cake and simple filling, all topped with that signature glossy coating of chocolate ganache. It’s rich but not too rich, sweet but not too sweet. It’s one of those classic desserts that will now always have a spot on my table. If it’s the real thing!
Get the recipe: Boston Cream Pie
Further Reading
We Asked 3 Chefs to Name the Best Ice Cream, and They All Said the Same Thing
The One Cookware Brand That Gordon Ramsay Can’t Stop Talking About
Ball Just Dropped the Most Beautiful Mason Jars for Its 140th Anniversary ("So Iconic!")
