Boston Cream Pie... or Cake?

I've been wanting to make a Boston Cream Pie for a while so I did. Or at least I tried to. 

Yes, I am aware that I made a cake, but according to Wikipedia, Boston Cream Pie is a cake and not a pie. 

Yes, I am aware that Wikipedia is not a scholarly source, but they are just full of interesting info so I will just take my chances.

Boston Cream Pie

First, I made a cake. Not the usual sponge cake, but the Banana Lemon Cake recipe that I used before.

Second, I made a custard filling with Bird's Custard powder . I started to follow the recipe but it didn't thicken up and didn't have the bright yellow colour that I wanted. 

So I added more powder... and more powder... and maybe a little more powder. Then I remembered that the milk had to boil before the custard powder would thicken up. 

Then it boiled and... thickened before I could even say "Bob's your uncle".

It was that fast. No joke.

As you can see, I had two layers of the custard. I've never cut a cake into three layers until today. I liked the outcome and I will probably do it again.

I should have spread the custard toward the very edge so that the glaze would fall continuously, but I was afraid that custard would gloop over the edge. 

Unnecessary worries. With all the extra powder that I added, the custard was almost as stiff as jello. I don't make custard often, so I was pretty sure that constancy was not normal. 

Normal or not, the cake tasted great and the weird custard consistency went very well with the moist banana cake.

I ended up using a the glaze recipe from the Bailey's Irish Cream Brownies using milk instead of the Irish Cream.


Recipe for the Custard filling

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6 table spoons of Bird's Custard Powder

4 tablespoons of Sugar

2 cups of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Place powder, sugar and milk into a sauce pan. Stir with a whisk until mixture boils and then thicken.

Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla. Cover and cool until ready to use.