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 engraved 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 past 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.)
But then, the Parker House itself had a spectacular first century. It was a premier hotel and dining room for 19th-century writers like Emerson and Longfellow. The hotel boasts that authors like Dickens and Willa Cather took up residence there, and the guest list included such luminaries as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ulysses S. Grant.
It was where the writers who founded the Atlantic Monthly convened, where John F. Kennedy announced his first candidacy for office 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 Street, is in the midst of a $50 million restoration.
The 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 sponge cake. It's light and moist."
As for the everlasting debate about whether Boston cream pie is actually a pie, Ribas confided, "Technically, this is a cake." It was called a pie, he said, because when it was served in the 1800s, it was presented in a metal baking tin.
But he added: "I call it a pie. This is our tradition, and I'm not going to change it."
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Recipes
BOSTON CREAM PIE
From the Omni Parker House
Total time: 90 minutes
4 cups pastry cream (recipe follows)
7 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted, plus butter for greasing the pan
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted.
Prepare and chill pastry cream.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In two mixing bowls, separate the egg yolks and whites. Add 1/2 cup sugar to each bowl. Beat the egg whites until moderately stiff, but not dry. Beat the yolks at high speed until light yellow and thick, about 3 minutes. Fold one third of the egg whites into the yolks, then fold in the remaining whites. Gradually add the flour, folding in with a spatula. Fold in the melted butter.
Pour the batter into a 10-inch greased springform pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the surface is golden and the center is dry when tested with a toothpick. Remove from the oven and cool thoroughly.
Combine the chocolate with 2 tablespoons of water, and melt in a microwave oven or double boiler. Reserve. Using a long serrated knife, level the top of the cake and slice into two layers of equal thickness. Reserve 11/2 cups of the pastry cream for the sides of the cake, and spread the remaining cream on one layer. Top with the second layer.
Top the cake with the 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 the sides of the cake with a thin layer of pastry cream, and press toasted almonds into the cream.
Yield: 1 10-inch cake, 10 servings.
- Approximate nutritional analysis per serving: 700 calories, 40 grams fat, 360 milligrams cholesterol, 160 milligrams sodium, 15 grams protein, 80 grams carbohydrates.
PASTRY CREAM
Total time: 15 minutes, plus several hours for chilling
1/2 cup sugar
31/2 tablespoons cornstarch
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups milk
2 cups light cream
1 teaspoon dark rum (or optional substitute: pineapple juice or syrup flavored with almond extract)
1/2 cup heavy cream
In the bowl of a mixer, combine the sugar, cornstarch and eggs. Beat until light in color and thick, about 3 minutes. Set aside.
In a large saucepan (about 6 quarts), combine the butter, milk and light cream. Bring to a boil, and whisk in the egg mixture. Boil for 1 minute. Pour into a bowl, and cover the surface with plastic wrap. Chill for several hours or overnight.
Shortly before the pastry cream is ready to use, add rum (or optional substitute) to the chilled mixture and whisk until smooth. Whip the heavy cream into soft peaks. Fold into pastry cream.
Yield: 4 cups.