Boston Cream Pie

Two layers of beautifully light sponge, filled with a thick vanilla Creme Patissiere and covered with a luscious chocolate ganache - Boston Cream Pie is a simple, elegant, and truly indulgent dessert.

This is quite obviously a cake, not a pie. So I did a bit of research to try and determine the origin of this (to me) strange name. From what I can gather, the reason for being called a pie is due to the fact that when this cake was first made, it was made in a pie tin, rather than a cake tin.

I also learnt that The Boston cream pie is the official dessert of Massachusetts, declared as such on 12 December 1996. Thanks, Wikipedia!

This cake is the second Freaky Friday recipe post! For the Summer Addition I was assigned to a blog that I have long adored, The Foodie Affair. Sandra, our host over on this great blog, is a self taught cook, wife, mother, and full time working professional. She continually posts the most amazing recipes. Thankfully, she likes to run - so all the more sweet treats for us to enjoy from her kitchen!

If you missed the last Freaky Friday event, we are a group of bloggers who get assigned to cook/bake something off another blog and post the recipe on the assigned day. All without anyone else knowing who is cooking who. This time we have 19 great blogs participating. You can view all the recipes through the link up at the bottom of this post. 

It took me such a long time to pick just one recipe to make from The Foodie Affair. I loved the Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup, the Peanut Butter Brownies, the Shrimp in Coconut Sauce... I could just go on and on. Eventually I settled for the fabulous Best Boston Cream Pie. I had never heard of this cake but to me it looked like a Victoria Sponge gone wild. So I was sold on the idea. 

I was so delighted with this cake. It was a breeze to make (so don't let the long list of instructions put you off!) and tasted absolutely wonderful. The cake itself was perfectly light, spongy, and airy, the creme pat creamy and smooth, and of course, the chocolate! YUM!

Important note: The Creme Patissiere needs time to chill very well in the refrigerator. It is therefore advisable to make this at least a few hours in advance of making the cake to allow ample time to get a lovely, thick Creme Patissiere.

Boston Cream Pie

Serves about 12

Vanilla Creme Patissiere

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup cream
½ cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, split

Cake

6 large eggs, at room temperature and separated
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 cup self raising flour

Ganache

8 ounces chocolate 
1 cup cream
1 tablespoon butter 

1. Make the Vanilla Creme Patissiere as follows:  Bring the milk and cream to a simmer over medium heat in a saucepan. In a bowl whisk together sugar, eggs, egg yolk and flour to blend. Whisk the warm milk and cream into the egg mixture. Return to saucepan and whisk over medium heat. Add split vanilla bean. Cook for about 5 minutes and let mixture get to a boiling point and let boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Transfer to a small bowl, allow to cool slightly before covering with plastic wrap and storing in the refrigerator to chill for about 4 hours.

2. Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Cut two round circles of parchment paper to fit on the bottom of two 9" cake pans. Set aside. 

3. Using two mixer bowls (one large, one small), separate the eggs by putting the egg whites in the large and the egg yolks in the small bowl. Add ½ cup of sugar to the egg whites and beat until very stiff and set aside. 

4. Add ½ cup of sugar to yolks and beat until very light yellow in color and thick. Fold egg yolks into egg whites. Two tablespoons at a time add flour and gently and quickly fold into mixture (don't over mix or beat). Pour into prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out dry.

Cool for about 5 minutes, remove from pan and remove parchment paper. Cool completely on baking racks.

5. Make the ganache by heating the cream and butter over a gentle heat in a saucepan. Add the chocolate, broken into chucks, and mix and very smooth.

6. Assemble the cake by placing one of the sponges (completely cooled)on a cake plate, removing the vanilla bean from the creme patissiere and spreading the creme pat over the cake. Place the second cake on top and pour the ganache over the top of the cake.

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