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Every Tuesday at 7:42 a.m. and 5:18 p.m., Tom Harte shares a few thoughts on food and shares recipes. A founder of “My Daddy’s Cheesecake,” a bakery/café in Cape Girardeau, a food columnist for The Southeast Missourian, and a cookbook author, he also blends his passion for food with his passion for classical music in his daily program, The Caffe Concerto.

Misleading Names

foodsogoodmall.com

"What's in a name?

" Shakespeare asked. Apparently, quite a bit...especially if the name doesn't fit and when it comes to food, there are lots of them.

For example, there's wild rice which isn't really rice at all but a form of grass. And peanuts, which aren't really nuts but legumes. And Chinese duck sauce and oyster sauce neither of which contains what sounds like it ought to be the principal ingredient. And then there are Jerusalem artichokes which aren't from the Holy Land, plus plum pudding which contains nary a plum.

But perhaps the greatest culinary misnaming of all is Boston Cream Pie. A concoction which anybody can tell just by looking is a not a pie but a cake. How it got it's name is a matter of some debate. You'd think the award-winning cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum would know but neither her Cake Bible nor her Pie and Pastry Bible (both of which I've read religiously) are much help. Boston Cream Pie doesn't appear in either one of them.

Most observers say Boston's Parker House Hotel -- where they still bake nearly 200 of them each week invented the version of Boston Cream Pie we know today. But some evidence suggests that a concoction known as Boston Cream Pie predated the one at the Parker House. According to the late James Beard it was a two-layer custard-filled butter cake merely sprinkled with powdered sugar.

But why were any of these cakes called "pie"? The best guess is that they were so labeled because they were baked in pie tins which more common in 19th Century America than cake tins. Indeed not a few old American recipes for pie are really for cakes baked in a pie tin.

After all these years it's unlikely that Boston Cream Pie will be re-christened Boston Cream Cake -- certainly not in Massachusetts where a few years ago it was anointed the state dessert, beating out the Toll House cookie and Indian Pudding during a spirited political battle.

+++++ Parker  House Boston Cream Pie +++++
(adapted from the Boston Herald)

13 eggs
1½ c. sugar
1 c. flour
3 tbsp. butter
2 c. milk
2 c. light cream
3½ tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. dark rum
6 oz. chocolate chips
5 tbsp. warm water
1 c. powered sugar
1 tbsp. light corn syrup
4 oz. toasted almonds

Separate 7 of the eggs and combine the yolks with ½ cup of the sugar, beating until light. Beat the whites, adding ½ cup sugar, until stiff peaks form. Fold the whites into the yolk mixture and mix in the flour. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and incorporate into the batter. Pour batter into a 10-inch greased cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 2o minutes, until golden. Cool completely.

Meanwhile, combine remaining tablespoon butter, milk, and cream in saucepan, and bring to a boil. While mixture is cooking, combine remaining ½ cup sugar, cornstarch, and remaining 6 eggs, and beat to the ribbon stage. When cream mixture reaches boiling point, whisk in the egg-cornstarch mixture and heat to boiling. Boil for 1 minute, then pour into a bowl and cover the surface with plastic wrap. Chill thoroughly.

Cut the cake into two layers. Whisk the pastry cream to smooth out, and add the rum. Generously spread pastry cream over bottom cake layer, reserving a small amount for the sides of the pie. Top with the second layer. Melt the chocolate with 4 tablespoons of the warm water to make an icing and spread a thin layer on the top of the cake. Combine the powdered sugar, corn syrup, and remaining tablespoon water to make a free-flowing icing, warming with ingredients if necessary. Pipe white icing in spiral pattern on top of cake and score with a knife to make decorative, web-like pattern. Spread sides of cake with thin coating of reserved pastry cream and press on toasted almonds.
 

Tom Harte is a retired faculty member from Southeast Missouri State University where he was an award-winning teacher, a nationally recognized debate coach, and chair of the department of Speech Communication and Theatre.
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