The Boston Cream Pie Incident

Andrew and I both love boston cream doughnuts. It's kind of a weakness. As I am writing this I realize it has been quite a while since I have had a doughnut, and I feel this needs to be remedied soon, so now I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Anyway, a while back, Andrew was interested in getting a boston cream pie. Since a single serving doughnut is delicious, he decided, a whole pie size boston cream doughnut must be out of this world. Once he found out boston cream pie is really a cake with some custard in it, he turned his puppy dog eyes on me and whimpered at asked me politely to perhaps think about how to make something that would be more like a doughnut or at least not cake?

So I thought about it. I decided that since I don't have a deep fryer, any kind of doughnut-making attempt would probably end up as cake. I played with the whole "pie" concept, but decided it would be taking the name a tad too literally. I don't follow anyone's rules but my own. I settled on a graham cracker crumb base.

The centre was easy, it was just custard. It was interesting for me, as I have never made custard before. As it turns out, custard is easy. Very easy. Almost too easy... It did use up 4 of my 6 eggs though, and free run eggs are not cheap.


After the custard, all that was left to figure out was the chocolate topping. I got some good dark chocolate bars and melted them in a double boiler, added some cream, and poured that all over. It ended up hardening too much, but that was okay because it tasted delicious.

Next time, I think I will go with an actual pie crust. The graham cracker crumbs were delicious, but not the best match to custard. I'd also add more cream to the chocolate to help it stay a bit creamier and less chocolate bar-esque. Or, maybe I'll just drive up the road to Tim Hortons and buy a dozen.