At the Parker House hotel, Boston cream pie has not for a moment been forgotten, even as Americans relegated it to old-line restaurants and grocery stores.
It is part of the heart and history of one of the country’s oldest continuously operated hotels, as much a part of the place as its carved oak paneling and ornate chandeliers. For here is where it was invented.
“It’s a lovely dessert,” said Joseph Ribas, the executive chef of what is now the Omni Parker House, who has presided over kitchen and pastry operations for the last 27 years. “I thought it definitely should be voted the dessert of Massachusetts.”
In November, it was. And now Boston cream pie is permanently written into the state’s law books.
The creamy dessert dates back to 1855 and a French chef hired by the hotel’s founder, Harvey Parker. The chef–a man the hotel has been able to identify only as Sanzian–topped an English cream cake with chocolate frosting, said Stephanie Seacord, who has researched its early days for the hotel.
(A later German chef, Kurt Ward, invented parkerhouse rolls, Seacord said.)
The Parker House had a spectacular first century. It was a premier hotel and dining room for eminent 19th Century writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The hotel boasts that authors such as Charles Dickens and Willa Cather took up residence there, and the guest list included such luminaries as Ulysses S. Grant and suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
It was where John F. Kennedy announced his first candidacy for office, where the writers who founded the Atlantic Monthly convened, and where John Wilkes Booth stayed during a stopover in Boston eight days before he assassinated Lincoln, Seacord said.
Today, some of the old glory is gone, but the hotel, at 60 School St., is in the midst of a $50 million restoration.
Its Boston cream pie has been updated too.
It is lighter than it was back in the 1800s, a bow to changing times and tastes. It now consists of three layers of cake and two of custard, topped with chocolate frosting swirled with white icing and adorned with toasted almonds on the sides.
“We used to put three times the amount of chocolate on top,” Ribas said.
What makes his pie stand out from other versions around town?
“I think it’s the filling,” he said. “And also the spongecake. It’s light and moist.”
BOSTON CREAM PIE
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Yield: 1 10-inch cake, 10 servings
Cooking time: 25 minutes
This recipe is from the Omni Parker House in Boston.
4 cups pastry cream, see recipe
7 large eggs
1 cup each: sugar, all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted, plus more for greasing pan
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
3 tablespoons water
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. In two mixing bowls, separate eggs. Add 1/2 cup sugar to each bowl. Beat egg whites until moderately stiff, but not dry. Beat yolks at high speed until light yellow and thick, about 3 minutes. Fold one-third of egg whites into yolks, then fold in remaining whites. Gradually add flour, folding in with a spatula. Fold in melted butter.
2. Pour batter into a 10-inch greased springform pan. Bake 25 minutes, or until surface is golden and center is dry when tested with a toothpick. Remove from oven and cool thoroughly.
3. Combine chocolate with 2 tablespoons water, and melt in a microwave oven or double boiler. Reserve. Using a long serrated knife, level top of the cake and slice into two layers of equal thickness. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of pastry cream for sides of the cake. Spread the remaining cream on one layer. Top with the second layer.
4. Top cake with chocolate mixture. Combine confectioners’ sugar, corn syrup and 1 tablespoon of water. Mix well. Place in a piping bag with a 1/8-inch tip. Pipe spiral lines starting from the center of the cake. Score lines with the point of a paring knife, starting at the center and pulling outward to the edge. Spread sides of the cake with a thin layer of pastry cream, and press toasted almonds into the cream.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories ….. 700 Fat ………… 40 g Cholesterol .. 360 mg
Sodium …. 160 mg Carbohydrates .. 80 g Protein …….. 15 g
PASTRY CREAM
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 cups
Chilling time: Several hours
1/2 cup sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups each: milk, half-and-half
1 teaspoon dark rum
1/2 cup whipping cream
1. Combine sugar, cornstarch and eggs in bowl of a mixer. Beat until light in color and thick, about 3 minutes. Set aside.
2. Combine butter, milk and half-and-half in large saucepan (about 6 quarts). Heat to a boil. Whisk 1/4 cup hot liquid into egg mixture. Then whisk egg mixture into remaining milk mixture. Heat back to a boil; boil 1 minute. Pour into a bowl and cover surface with plastic wrap. Chill several hours or overnight.
3. Shortly before pastry cream is ready to use, add rum to the chilled mixture and whisk until smooth. Whip whipping cream into soft peaks. Fold into pastry cream.
