RECIPEAS4U: Boston Cream Pie Recipe and Birthday Cakes

Lynn's coconut cake brings back memories of my mother's special birthday cakes.

When I ask friends, "what do you want for you birthday?", the usual response is "bake me a cake!" The "what kind?" question is answered based on the type of cakes their moms baked for them as kids. So it has become a tradition that on each of their birthdays, their husbands and families are off the hook for dessert. Some even text me to confirm delivery, just to make sure they don't have to run to the bakery at the last minute.

Where there have been Texas shaped cakes, Barbie, Batman and Superman cakes; the most requested are Coconut Cake-6 layers, Carrot Cake-6 layers, and German Chocolate Cake-6 layers. Are you sensing a theme here? These homemade cakes look majestic peering from their tall glass containers, and taste as good as they look. The very simple one layer Texas Chocolate Cake, known by everyone here as Texas Sheet Cake, remains my personal childhood favorite.

Barbie made an appearance at my niece's birthday a few years ago.

I have several tall glass cake stands with tops just for birthday deliveries. I picked each one up at an estate sale, and it pleases me that they each have a history in someone's else's kitchen. While my heart won't be broken if they don't make it back, that can't be said of my mother's Depression glass cake stands--those rarely leave my house. There is almost always one stand out on loan, sitting proudly atop a friend's kitchen counter, remnants of birthday cake resting inside. No need to label any of these shared treasures though--if you don't bring them back, they can't be refilled. System has worked perfectly so far.

I like a birthday cake to look like its homemade---not from the bakery--made with love.

Twice last week I was asked to bake Emeril Lagasse's mouth-watering Gigi's Carrot Cake. I discovered this recipe years ago, and it has never failed to impress both the eyes and taste buds. The only change I have made is to double, or sometimes triple, the cream cheese icing recipe. This cake has 6 thin layers (3 if you're in a hurry), and my sweet minded friends seem to crave the cream cheese icing as much as the moist cake. Any leftover icing is used to pipe various designs on top of the cake. Seems you really can never have too much icing in any form for these girls! Carrot Cake appears each year for Annie's and Gretchen's birthdays--all 6 cream cheese icing covered layers!

Gigi's Carrot Cake
6 layers of goodness topped with cream cheese icing.

In my family, only three cakes reign as worthy of being baked for birthdays; the Kennard/Janes family's Texas Chocolate Cake (aka Funeral Cake, Sheath or Sheet Cake and made famous by pretty much every one's mom in Texas), Coconut Layered Cake (my mother's specialty made with a yellow cake mix and her fluffy 7-Minute Icing), and the Tunnell/Douglas family's favorite, Boston Cream Pie (made every year that I can remember for my husband's birthday, first by his mother and now by me). Betty isn't quite sure where she found the recipe--"perhaps in a cookbook?" she told me recently.

Years ago, while rummaging through her recipe files, I copied the recipe. One look at that now tattered and stained card is proof that I persevered, until I finally mastered the baking, splitting, filling and icing of a proper Boston Cream Pie, suitable enough for any Tunnell birthday celebration.

Covered in chocolate, the cake is filled with vanilla custard.

But why is a cake called a pie you may ask? I did a little Internet research (Susan Wilson's The Omni Parker House. A Brief History of America's Longest Continuously Operating Hotel) and the answer is a bit confusing, but here goes.

Most people believe it's called pie instead of cake, because pie tins were more readily available in home kitchen than cake tins. Not sure why cooks back in the 1850s preferred pies or pie tins, but so the tale goes. This simple yellow sponge cake (not white if you want it to be original), filled with vanilla custard and covered in a semi-sweet chocolate glaze, was created around 1855 in the kitchen of the newly opened Omni Parker House hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. (Since the kitchen was run by a newly hired French Chef. M. Sanzian, one would think he could get as many cake tins as he wanted added to his professional kitchen.) Regardless of its origin, the recipe became popular enough to become a Betty Crocker box mix in 1958 and the official Massachusetts State Dessert in 1996--competing, mind you, against the Toll House cookie and Indian Pudding.

A simple yellow cake from scratch is the base for the Boston Cream Pie.

You can skip and go to the recipe if you prefer, but I love this kind of stuff!

Here are some fun facts about The Omni Parker Hotel, the oldest hotel in the U.S., from a blog about New England: newenglandfolkloreblogspot.com.

"Guests of the Parker House in 1912 and 1913 may have eaten Boston cream pie made by Ho Chi Minh, the future Communist leader of North Vietnam, who opposed the U.S. during the Vietnam war. Born in 1890, he had fled Vietnam (then called French Indochina) to avoid persecution for his political beliefs. He wound up in Boston working in the hotel's kitchen as a pastry chef. I guess he opposed the French colonialists in Vietnam, but had still absorbed their baking skills! This sounds like a tall tale, but is true. In 2005 officials from the Vietnamese government visited the hotel kitchen where Ho Chi Minh worked. I'm not sure if they arrived in time to eat any of that sixteen foot Boston cream pie.

One other famous revolutionary worked at the Parker House restaurant. Malcolm X (then known as Malcolm Little) worked there as a busboy during the 1940s. That's a lot of activism coming out of one kitchen. I think the moral here is to always tip your server well because you never know when they might start a revolution.

Since the late 1800’s, this venerable restaurant has built quite a prominent culinary legacy. From hiring the first celebrity French Chef in America, Chef Sanzian in 1855 to launching the culinary careers of Emeril Lagasse, Lydia Shire and Jasper White."
http://www.justluxe.com/travel/boston-news"

Seems Charles Dickens lived at the hotel for two years and gave his first American reading of A Christmas Carol at the Omni. A young John F. Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier in the main dining room at Table 40 (still reserved most evenings for love-birds). I wonder if he hid the ring in a small Boston Cream Pie? How romantic and messy that could have been!

The source of this cake recipe has a pretty amazing history: the founding of a classic American hotel, the career of a prized French chef, the professional kitchen that brought us Parker House Rolls, the employment of both a Communist leader and a Black Civil Rights activist and apprenticeship of three famous contemporary chefs; and, finally, a historic and romantic dinner in the hotel's dining room which set the stage for the beginning of Camelot.

Pretty impressive background for such a simple little birthday cake, don't you think? No one in our family really cares much about the history though, which I why I had to share it with you. They just enjoy eating the cake, the cream filling and the chocolate icing.

Boston Cream Pie
Birthday Cake with a history.

Boston Cream Pie
from Betty Douglas Tunnell

Cake:

1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
2/3 cup whole milk, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
one large egg, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour one 9" round cake pan. (I use Williams Sonoma's non-stick cake pans with a parchment paper insert instead. Place a dot of shortening on the bottom of the pan and put your parchment round on top. This makes releasing the cake pretty much fail proof.) You can get parchment rounds at your local bake shop or make your own. I've done both.

In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

Beat sugar and vegetable shortening together until fluffy. Add egg and mix well. Stir vanilla into milk. Alternately, gently mix in flour then milk until mixture is well blended, but not over beaten. You want the batter to remain light and fluffy. If you prefer, you can also use a wooden spoon.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake on center rack of oven for 30 minutes or until cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to wire rack to cool completely. Remove parchment paper and split into two layers with serrated knife. Put first layer on cake plate and fill with chilled custard cream. Place second layer on top. Carefully spread chocolate icing on top of cake, allowing it to fall gently onto some of the sides.

Blend ingredients gently so batter is fluffy and light.

For easy removal of bake, use pre-cut parchment paper rounds and non-stick pans.

The perfect cake batter--light and smooth.

Carefully split the cake into two pieces with a serrated knife.

Custard Cream Filling
makes enough for 1-9" cake

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups whole milk
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

Add sugar, salt, cornstarch and flour to top of double boiler (or into a metal bowl set over a pot of simmering water if you don't have a double boiler). * Stir in milk and bring to a slow boil over low heat while stirring. Simmer 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens a bit. Remove from heat.

Place egg in a small bowl and beat lightly. Stir a tablespoon or two of the hot mixture into the egg. This warms the egg so it doesn't curdle when you add it to the hot custard. Add egg to custard, place bowl back over simmering water and cook about 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Mixture will thicken and be smooth and creamy. Sorry, you can't hurry this part! When thickened, remove from heat and stir in butter. Let cool completely, then press plastic wrap on top of the surface of the custard. Place in refrigerator to chill for at least one hour. Custard can be made a day ahead and refrigerated.

When you are ready to use, remove plastic wrap and whisk until smooth and easy to spread.

This recipe is also great for vanilla or chocolate pudding. Just add two 1-ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate to the custard as it cooks. I've also used it as a base for banana pudding. Very versatile and delicious.

*I have made the custard in a double boiler, in a metal mixing bowl or a pot of simmering water, and in my heavy copper pot directly on top of the heat. The key to any custard is to make sure the bottom doesn't burn, but stirring constantly over a very low heat. Takes time--but it's definitely worth it. By the way, I have burned the bottom a few times along the way too! Haste makes waste, as my mother always said.

When completely cool, cover with plastic wrap and chill.

Gently top first layer with custard filling.

Go as close to the edge as possible, leaving a little space so the custard doesn't ooze out.

Cake filled and ready to top with chocolate glaze.

Chocolate Icing

1 square (1 ounce) semi-sweet chocolate (we have always used Baker's)
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
2 1/2 teaspoons boiling water, more as needed to thin
1 cup sifted confectioners sugar

Carefully, melt chocolate and butter together in microwave or on top of stove over very low heat. I check every 20 seconds, stirring to see when they blend together. Doesn't take long! Place confectioners sugar in a mixing bowl and add melted chocolate and butter. Add boiling water a teaspoon at a time, blending as you go, until the mixture is smooth, but not stiff. Icing should be soft enough that it will fall over the cake, but not so soft that it all falls off the sides. Hope that makes sense. Look at the photos. It should just barely slip over the sides. This is not an iced cake.

Printable Recipe