It was Adarsh’s birthday last week, and he requested that I make something other than chocolate cake (cue gasp). So I took advantage of the situation to make the Moist Vanilla Cake I was working on into something that I was totally craving – Boston Cream Pie.

Not a pie at all, in fact, but an impossibly moist vanilla cake filled with cool, creamy vanilla pudding and topped with a chewy chocolate ganache. In other words, heaven.

Boston Cream Pie – www.foodess.com

I like to be generous with the filling, so I carved a bit of a slanted well in the bottom layer to accomodate more cream. Pardon the hack job in the photo above, I had about 3 seconds to accomplish the task with 2-year-old vying for his turn to dig out a handful of cake.

Boston Cream Pie – www.foodess.com

I really like the homey, lickably (that’s a word, right?) inviting look of desserts spilling over, but you could tidy up the presentation by using less filling (maybe two-thirds), and/or use an offset metal spatula run under hot water to smooth out the ganache topping.

Boston Cream Pie – www.foodess.com

 

Boston Cream Pie

Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Servings 8
Dessert
American

Ingredients
  

For Cake:

  • Recipe here: http://foodess.com/moist-vanilla-cake cut and paste into your address bar, or it's linked from "Moist Vanilla Cake", in above text

For Pastry Cream Filling:

  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • â…“ cup cornstarch
  • ¼ tsp coarse salt
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 3 cups whole milk
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

For Ganache:

  • 5 tbsp whipping cream
  • 3 tbsp corn syrup
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • â…› tsp salt
  • 6 oz dark or semisweet chocolate chopped

Instructions
 

For Pastry Cream Filling:

  • Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and cold water, then nestle a medium-sized bowl inside.
  • In a medium saucepan off of heat, whisk together sugar, cornstarch and salt. Very gradually whisk in milk to dissolve cornstarch, then whisk in egg yolks.
  • Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until the first large bubbles form and sputter. Reduce heat to low and, still stirring, cook until cream is thick, one or two minutes more. Remove from heat and pour cream into the medium bowl set in ice bath. (Force it through a fine-mesh sieve if the cream has curdled - no biggie.) Stir butter and vanilla into hot pastry cream, then place bowl into ice bath and stir continuously until cooled.

For Ganache:

  • In a medium saucepan, combine whipping cream, corn syrup, butter and salt over medium high heat. As soon as it comes to a simmer, remove from heat.
  • Place chopped chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and pour cream mixture over top. Stir continually until chocolate has melted completely.

To Assemble:

  • Use a sharp knife to cut the rounded top off of the bottom cake, carving out a shallow well for the filling.  Fill with the pastry cream, spreading to the edges of cake.  Position second cake on top.  Spread ganache over top (rewarm it first over a saucepan of simmering water if needed).  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Last Updated on July 27, 2015 by Jennifer Pallian BSc, RD

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Amanda Hexel
Amanda Hexel
2 years ago

5 stars
So, we are looking for the original vanilla recipe. Do you know where we can find it? The one from this recipe not your new one.

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