Omni Hotel Boston Cream Pie

Where The Famous Began

Not only have the rich and famous enjoyed a luxurious stay or two here at the oldest hotel in the USA, but they have also put in some hours behind the scenes making other guests experiences just as fabulous.

Like, did you know that Malcolm X worked here in the kitchen? So did Ho Chi Minh and world renowned chef Emeril Lagasse! These notables make up another element of the Omni Parker House history. Its these fun tidbits that bring many guests near and far through the lobby to learn more about this venue that gave many their starting point to success.

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Omni Parker House Boston

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Tips For Making Boston Cream Pie

I will say upfront that this cake will take some time to prepare, as well as some intermediate baking skills but dont let that scare you off. Boston Cream Pie is a dessert that is well worth the effort and if you carefully follow our recipe below youll have a delicious, show-stopper of a dessert to serve your dinner guests.

Here are a few tips & tricks I learned along the way:

• You must use a kitchen scale and weigh the flour and sugar for the cake. Do not try to convert the weight to a measured volume amount the measurements must be precise, and weight measurements are the ONLY way to be exact.
• Use softened butter in the cake, NOT melted butter. This makes an enormous difference.
• The flour and butter need to be folded into the batter and not whisked. To fold, simply take a spatula and gently fold the ingredients over and over until they are mixed.
• DONT use bake-even strips around the edge of the cake pans. The cake batter in this recipe bakes up nice and evenly as is, and the bake-even strips actually prevent the batter from rising properly. So dont use them.

The nice thing about this recipe is that you can tackle it in pieces so it wont feel overwhelming. Make the custard the day before you plan to serve your Boston Cream Pie. Bake the cake layers the day before so they, too, can cool before assembling. Then, assemble your Boston Cream Pie a few hours before you plan to serve it so the ganache can set up before slicing.

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Boston Cream Pie Is A Classic Cake

Its not every cake that stays in the public eye, and inside commercial and home kitchens, for more than 100 years. From the spongy, soft cake to the cool custard or pastry cream interior, up to the tippy top of its shiny chocolate-covered layer, Boston Cream Pie remains as appealing as ever.

Do share your memories, experiences, and your recipes! Who couldnt use more BCP in their lives?

What Is Boston Cream Pie

Despite the name, its not a pie at all. Filled with a rich and velvety pastry cream, what truly makes this two-layer golden cake so special is the rich chocolate icing. Back in the 1800s, chocolate was mainly consumed at home as a beverage or in puddings. With this inventive use of chocolate, the dessert was originally named Chocolate Cream Pie. Over time, the name changed, and in 1958, the Boston Cream Pie became so popular it was fashioned into a Betty Crocker boxed cake mix recipe.

Its so wicked awesome , were sharing our original recipe so you can learn how to make your own Boston Cream Pie at home. But if baking isnt your thing, you can always order Boston Cream Pie delivery from Goldbelly.

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Omni Parker House Boston Cream Pie

Owners of the Parker House Hotel in Boston claim that the Boston cream pie was first created at the hotel by renowned French chef Augustine Francois Anezin, who led the hotels culinary staff from 1865-81. The Boston cream pie is the official dessert of Massachusetts, declared as such on 12 December 1996

Who Created Boston Cream Pie

The Omni Parker House is Bostons oldest continuously operating hotel established back in 1855. Its also the oldest continuously running hotel in the United States. Plenty of sites proclaim Boston Cream Pie to have been created in 1856. They also claim that BCP was the creation of Chef Sanzian. They are wrong there, too.

The chefs name wasnt Sanzian, but Chef Augustine Anezin, who worked at the hotel from 1865-1881 . As you already guessed, the 1856 date is wrong. The exact year when Boston Cream Pie was created isnt nailed down, but its definitely sometime after 1865 and, obviously, before the chef died in 1881 or we would call this Boston Ghost Pie.

When the Parker House opened in 1855, chocolate was mainly consumed at home as a beverage or in puddings. There was no lack of chocolate in Boston, since Americas first chocolate mill had opened in neighboring Dorchester in 1765.

Since colonial times, New Englanders have enjoyed a dessert called American Pudding-cake pie, but when Parker Houses own Chef Anezin and his bake staff drizzled chocolate icing onto sponge cake filled with vanilla custard, something new and sensational was born. Originally dubbed Parker House Chocolate Cream Pie, Boston Cream Pie became an immediate and perennial hit.

Boston Cream Pie, Omni House Hotel, Accessed August 9, 2021.

It would have made an eye-catching menu item.

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In Literature And Music

For more than 150 years, the Parker House has appeared in prose and poetry set in and around Boston.

Edith Wharton included a private meeting between characters Mr. Newland Archer and Countess Ellen Olenska at the Parker House in her celebrated work of the early 20th century, The Age of Innocence. Archer is told that the Countess Olenska is staying in Boston at the Parker House, and he flees Newport to meet her there.

Quentin Compson treats himself to a meal at Parkers Restaurant before committing suicide by flinging himself from the Anderson Memorial Bridge into the Charles River in William Faulkners 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury.

In Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman Willy Loman claims he met a salesman in the Parker House. One imagines that as today a salesman would meet people in the public areas of such a grand hotel but stay, like Willy, at somewhere like the Standish Arms.

Although many haunting books and ghost tours claim that Stephen Kings 1999 short story 1408about a writer who experiences a haunted stay at a New York hotel called the Dolphinwas based on Room 303 of the Parker House and the supernatural events surrounding the room, Kings personal assistant says that claim is false.

In Donna Tartts 1992 novel The Secret History, the characters stayed at the Parker House, mentioning it was where Dickens had stayed. In Anita Diamants 2004 novel, The Boston Girl, the main character experiences a bad date at the Parker House.

How Did Boston Cream Pie Originate

The dessertlayers of pastry surrounding a spill of custard, the top glazed in chocolateis often said to have been invented at Bostons Omni Parker House, where the future Communist revolutionary worked as a baker around 1912. His marble-topped pastry table can still be seen on display at the hotel.

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Original Boston Cream Pie

The Boston cream pie is amazing!! Cocktails were out of this world. Try the Rye Manhattan if you are looking for a treat. The service was slow, but we were only there for drinks and pie, so I don’t blame the staff.

• Trip type: Traveled as a couple
• Location

2.1 miles

• Free Wifi

1.0 miles

• Free Wifi

1.4 miles

• Free Wifi

3.9 miles

• Free parking

3.3 miles

• Free Wifi

0.7 miles

• Restaurant

1.7 miles

• Pool

2.0 miles

• Pool

0.8 miles

• Free Wifi

0.5 miles

• Free Wifi

4,5244,5299,560

We didn’t stay in the hotel, but we had dinner in the restaurant, and it was excellent! I had the pork chop on a bed of buttermilk mashed potates, and veggies on the side. It was, without a doubt, the most delicious pork chop I’ve ever had! Tender, juicy, and the sauce was outstanding! The Boston Cream pie was, however, just ok. I’ve had a Boston Cream donut that was more moist and creamy.

• Trip type: Traveled with family
• Value

• Trip type: Traveled on business
• Location

Why You’ll Enjoy The Omni Parker House Hotel

Here are 3 top reasons why you’ll have a wonderful stay at the Boston Omni Parker House:

• Always jewel-like, the Omni Hotel Boston is dazzling after a recent $30 million dollar renovation. You’ll feel the quality of the heavy brass doors, feast your eyes on the splendor of the gorgeous lobby and other public areas, and relax in the luxury of your private space, knowing you’re in one of the best Boston hotels.
• The hotel’s convenient location right on the Freedom Trail is hard to beat. You’re in the middle of one of Boston’s oldest and interesting areas, with Boston Common nearby, historic sites all around you, and fabulous shopping at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market just a couple of blocks away.
• After an energetic day of sightseeing, you can pop into Parker’s Bar and reward yourself with a delicious slice of authentic Boston Cream Pie. Or go for a modern twist: the Boston Cream Pie Martini.

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Why Is Boston Cream Pie Called Pie When Its Cake

In older areas of the US, the terms cake and pie were once interchangeable. As I think Ive mentioned before, cakes were once made in pie tins. Consider this: Layer cakes werent even a thing until the 1870s. Isnt that mind-blowing? The 1870s! Back then, cake tins were harder to come by. So, people used their pie tins.

Think of it as something similar to how folks in the UK call desserts in general pudding, even though the blanket term covers far more than just pudding, yet it also includes actual pudding, and you have the right idea. Same thing, and only slightly confusing.

Now for the second point: Chocolate wasnt everywhere like it is today. The first chocolate mill didnt hit the US until the mid- to late- 1700s. People didnt go out to get chocolate, but consumed it at home, in the form of a beverage. Drinking chocolate was so widespread, in fact, that according to Chocolate by Marcia and Frederic Morton, Tavern keepers complained about the foreign drinks inroads on the traditional English tankard. In 1763, ale and beer interests had even pushed for legislation against the import of cocoa beans. They were unsuccessful. That may have occurred in England, but chocolate was gaining a foothold in the US too, thanks to established trade routes.

Why tell you all these things about chocolate?

Boston Cream Pie: A History Plus 3 Recipes

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It had been years since I made a Boston Cream Pie. I loved it then even if I hadnt known the first thing about how to make custard. I knew I would love it 100x more now, what with heaps more baking experience behind me, and plenty of cookbooks to browse among. I decided to try againand to dig into Boston Cream Pie and its history while I was at it. Because yay! History!

Many websites boast of Boston Cream Pies mystery, such as why its termed pie when its a cake, and why the name Boston, when those arent actually mysteries at all. I feel just like Charles-Haden Savage, Oliver Putnam, and Mabel Mora solving a crime . No murder has been committed here, unless you count the murdering of fact, that is. There is a vast amount of disinformation out there, cookbook and online.

Lets set the record straight. We will take a look at the history behind the Boston Cream Pie: Who invented it, why it was a big deal, and bake recipes galore. You can also head over here to view the origin of custard, mousse, and pudding. Ive included the original recipe, as well as two other BCP recipes so you can pick and choose how you want to roll with this. Use the table of contents below to zip around, if desired.

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Boston Cream Pie Recipe Using Shortening In The Cake

Shortening in a cake? Before you grab your cake testers in lieu of pitchforks and flood me with hate mail, I decided this Boston Cream Pie recipe that uses shortening would be a good addition to try. While I normally have a whole big stockpile of butter on-hand, that wasnt always the case. I figured there are people out there who would appreciate an option using shortening following the traditional single-layer cake split into two horizontal halves mode. Also, it was good! Like, really good.

I used the basic shortening sticks because they are infinitely easier to measure than the big ol tub of shortening I used to use many years ago. They were the plain shortening sticks, not the butter-flavored shortening sticks, FYI.

Boston Cream Pie Recipe

• 1 3″ longCinnamon Stick
• 1Vanilla Bean, Split LengthwiseI used an equal amount of Vanilla Paste instead.
• 1/4 CupSugar

Hot Milk Sponge Cake Recipe

• 1CupFlour

Glaze Recipe

• 1/4CupHeavy Cream
• 3OuncesSemisweet or Bittersweet Chocolate, Coarsely ChoppedI used an equal amount of milk chocolate chips instead.

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Yucky Boston Cream Pie

We went to eat at the Omni Parker House because its famous for being the origin of the Boston Cream Pie and got a shock: turns out they offer the original recipe and the original recipe isnt as good as typical current BCP and its got nuts all over it. Yuk.More

We are sorry you were disappointed with our famous and originial Boston Crème Pie. However, we understand that not everyone enjoys the same things, so we hope that you may come back so that you may try our many other fine entrees and delicious desserts served in Parkers Restaurant, Parkers Bar and The Last Hurrah. Whether you are looking for a peaceful fine dining experience or a more relaxed atmosphere, we have the perfect ambiance for you. The Parker House is proud to be celebrating a rich culinary tradition since 1855 and we are proud continue to offer a menu that we believe can appeal to everyone tastes. We look forward to seeing you again!

2.1 miles

• Trip type: Traveled with family
• Value