Not the Cake Lady, but a Heck of a Boston Cream Pie

You might have guessed from earlier posts that I am an unabashed Bostonophile. When we got married four years ago we opted for a huge Boston Cream Pie in lieu of the traditional white wedding cake. Being the reluctant baker that I am, the spring-form pan that was on our registry has stayed pristine, complete with packaging until a few weeks ago.

Some very good friends gave me the New Boston Globe Cookbook for Christmas and I have been baking more lately, mainly because it is a stress relief from work and school. We were having a dinner party, and needed a new dessert, so I went for it. Though B baked his signature chocolate chip cookies just in case it did not turn out well.

I approached the Boston Cream Pie recipe with trepidation. The traditional recipe is quite unlike the bastardizations you see in supermarkets, and is basically a vanilla cake with a small amount of homemade custard in the middle, and is topped with a chocolate ganache. It is a three step process that involves tempering an egg; up until attempting this recipe my only exposure to this technique was seeing it on The Food Network.

Full disclosure: I am the daughter of Holden's famed 'Cake Lady'. My Mom is a phenomenally talented baker and used to do hundreds of amazingly elaborate cakes for her clients. When I was in high school, I somehow broiled a cake in home economics, and I think my Mom questioned where she went wrong with me. Fortunately, I have gotten a bit better at baking since then. And my Mom--probably given her profession--is very good at talking through the steps of cake baking and her advice for this recipe was no exception.

This recipe turned out to be not as difficult as I imagined--if time consuming--and yielded a fantastically moist cake. And if you'd like to--as someone would say--"turn the volume up" on this recipe, use a luxurious unsweetened chocolate (all you need is one ounce or so) for the icing.

And after making a huge cake two weeks in a row, B found a 4.5 inch spring-form pan so we (we=he) can enjoy this treat even when we aren't entertaining.

Thanks Mom.