Boston Cream Pie, No, Cake!

I bugged Katie to tell me what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday party. She perused one of my cake cookbooks, Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes, and chose Boston Cream Pie.

Boston Cream Pie and the famous Parker House rolls were invented at the Parker House Hotel in Boston, which has a plaque by their front door declaring it the longest continuously operating hotel in the United States. I passed it on the street last fall when I visited Boston.



Here's the thing about Boston Cream Pie - it isn't a pie at all. This made for some funny conversations on the phone with Mom when we were talking about party plans.

Mom: So do you want to bring the pie out to my house to serve?
Kimberly: You mean the cake?
Mom: Oh, I thought you were making a pie.
Kimberly: No, I'm making a cake. A Boston Cream Pie.
Mom: So you are making a pie?
Kimberly: No, a cake.



This particular version of the Boston Cream Pie had three layers of vanilla chiffon cake with vanilla custard filling, topped by a thick bittersweet chocolate ganache. Chiffon cake is somewhat similar to angel food cake, but it uses oil and egg yolks so it is more moist than angel food.

For dinner, we met at Abuelo's where Nancy hit the salsa pretty hard all night.



Then back to my house for birthday cake/pie.



The cake was pretty good. I think the chiffon cake recipe needs some tweaks. It was a little too dry. And the best part of a cream pie is the cream, so the custard to cake ratio needs to be increased. The chocolate was a tad too bitter for my taste. I think everyone liked it pretty well. Nancy had no problems diving in.



I love living so close to my family. One of my favorite things to do is spend time with Katie and her little family. I couldn't ask for better siblings. I love them so much. As we've all gotten older, I'm most glad that we've become the best of friends. Happy birthday, Katie!