March 14: Boston Cream Pie

When Keith was in high school and college he had a summer job as a performer on the Stone Mountain Scenic Railroad.  He usually played a cowboy or Confederate soldier in a historical scene alongside the train's route; the train would slow down and stop so that the passengers could watch the action.  Sometimes, he was the announcer on the train, welcoming the passengers, providing trivia about the park or narrating the mini-plays.  One of his favorite jokes from his railroad announcer days was about a southern country bumpkin learning geometry:

When the bumpkin was instructed to find the area of a circle using...

, 

the redneck became outraged and insisted "Pie are ROUND, cornbread are square!"

In honor of Pi Day (3.1415... ), my Saturday Cake is Boston Cream Pie.  Its very name claims its New England Yankee heritage.  I had been in a quandary about how to celebrate Pi Day in this year of cakes.  My college friend, Laura Simard Regan,  suggested Boston Cream Pie as the best choice.  I met Laura my freshman year at Dartmouth and I know that I can trust her judgement on this because:  She was a math major and claimed to have graduated "Pseudo Cum Laude" and she is, herself, a Connecticut Yankee.  Plus, Laura has the good judgement to now reside south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Most of our gang at Molly's Balloon in Hanover for a birthday celebration.
That's me in the blue blazer with Laura, standing, right behind me.

When choosing the Boston Cream Pie recipe I knew that making a Yankee cake required a Yankee recipe.  I chose the recipe from The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook.  The King Arthur Flour Company is located in Norwich, Vermont, right across the Connecticut river from our Alma Mater.  King Arthur sells flour and baking specialty products at kingarthurflour.com.  KAF also offers baking classes and sells freshly-baked treats at their Norwich headquarters.  

In March of 2003, I took a vacation to attend a two-day French Baguette class at KAF.  I booked a long weekend at Breakfast On the Connecticut, a bed and breakfast inn in Lyme, New Hampshire (breakfastonthect.com) and drove up from my home in Washington, DC.  On the way up, I encountered snow storm that started in Connecticut and worsened the further north I drove.  Yet, I was determined!  My planned 8-hour trip became a 15-hour trip and I arrived in Lyme exhausted.  The next morning at the Baking Education Center I discovered that only three other students had been able to make it to class, so our two-day class was shortened to one day.  It was immensely enjoyable and I would love to take more classes there sometime.  Due to the storm, my hosts at the inn offered to share their dinner that night after the class so that I wouldn't have to get out on the roads.  Did they know I was a southerner and assumed that I couldn't drive in the snow?

My Boston Cream Pie

The recipe was located in the "Pies and Pastry"section of the cookbook, under a heading called "Pastry Mavericks."   It calls for topping the assemblage with "your choice of chocolate frosting."  I chose to chocolate ganache.  As you can tell, the cake layers are a little dark; the recipe instructed to bake for 30 minutes, but at 20 minutes, I checked and found the cake layers on the verge of burning!  The filling is pastry cream, made from flour, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla.  Keith likes the ganache and the pastry cream, but acknowledges that the cake was a little dry.

I've made a pie that is a cake.  

I make my cornbread round (as any self-respecting southerner does, unless they are in a punchline).  

I am a southerner who drives in the snow and bakes on vacation.  

So, call me a Pastry Maverick!

Next Saturday:  Sheath Cake