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Graham Cracker Crust in homemade Boston Cream Pie Reinvented as Pie

Boston Cream Pie Reinvented as Pie

A crunchy graham cracker crust, with vanilla pastry cream and a rich chocolate topping, this dessert is a crowd pleaser that is a lot simpler to make than it looks. 

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 8 servings
Author Laura

Ingredients

Crust

  • 1 graham cracker crust
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 3 tablespoons sugar

Filling - Vanilla Pastry Cream

  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 9 tablespons sugar (1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon)
  • pinch kosher or fine sea salt
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Chocolate Topping

  • 3 ounces heavy cream
  • 4 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
  • 3 3/4 - 4 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped

Instructions

Crust

  1. Crush the graham crackers and mix in the melted butter and the sugar. Spread over the pie pan and press down. See note below for link to pie crust recipe - must be baked and cooled before adding the filling.

Filling - Vanilla Pastry Cream

  1. Stir the milk, vanilla, 1/4 cup of the sugar, and the pinch of salt together in a medium-large saucepan. Set aside.

    first stage of making cream for Boston Cream Pie.

  2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, starch and the remaining sugar (1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon) until the mixture is thick and pale yellow, about 2-3 minutes. 

  3. Heat the milk, vanilla, sugar and salt mixture under a low light until the mixture simmers. Then remove from the heat and pour small amounts of the hot liquid into the egg yolks, starch, and remaining sugar in a stream, whisking after each addition. After you have added all the liquid to the egg yolks, starch, and sugar, pour the mixture back into the saucepan. Bring it back to a simmer, whisking constantly, and whisk for two more minutes after the first sign of bubbles. 

    Second stage of cream for filling of Boston Cream Pie.

  4. Take the mixture off the heat and gently whisk in the softened butter, until the butter is completely absorbed into the custard.

  5. Pour the custard into the cooled pie crust and press plastic wrap against the top. Let the filling cool for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate until well chilled, at least 2-3 hours. 

Chocolate Topping

  1. Bring the heavy cream and corn syrup to a simmer over medium heat, stirring gently to combine the ingredients. Once the cream and corn syrup mixture simmers, pour it over the chopped chocolate (in a heatproof bowl) and leave those ingredients undisturbed for two minutes. At the end of the two minutes, stir them together until the chocolate is smooth. Refrigerate the ganache until you are ready to serve the pie. Once you are ready to serve it, microwave the ganache on a low setting and stir until it is a pourable consistency. Then gently pour it over the top of the pie and spread it out to the edges. 

    Adding chocolate topping to Boston Cream Pie.

Recipe Notes

The process of slowly adding the heated milk to the eggs in the filling is called "tempering" the eggs. It prevents the eggs from scrambling, which would happen if you suddenly added all of the hot liquid to the cold eggs. 

If you can find it choose heavy cream over whipping cream for the topping. Here is why. 

You can make the chocolate topping (called ganache) days or even weeks ahead of time and freeze it, well wrapped. When defrosting it in a microwave (or warming it after refrigeration) do it slowly at a low setting, stirring frequently. 

The butter pictured among the ingredients is partly for the graham cracker crust. Here's my crust recipe. If you prefer a slightly less sweet crust with this rather sweet pie, just leave out the sugar in the crust and use only graham crackers and butter.