Dessert's history in no longer a history

The Parker House claims credit for inventing Boston cream pie, and it well might have, although, according to cookbook author Greg Patent, the confection was not initially called that. Patent spent a year researching the topic. One of the things he did not find is an often-quoted 1855 New York Herald article describing the dessert. ''I went to the archives at Indiana University in Bloomington, and looked at microfilm from the New York Herald, December 1855, where I found a menu for the anniversary gathering of the New England Society," he writes. ''It listed Boston Cream cakes, which are basically cream puffs."

When The Parker House opened in 1856, there was a dessert on the menu that resembled Boston cream pie. According to Patent, it was called chocolate cream pie. ''It was brought to Boston by a French chef, and was a very European dessert," writes the author. ''It was a butter sponge cake, with no leavening, a wonderful custard, with sliced almonds pressed on the sides, and topped with a chocolate fondant." Fondant, a cooked icing, is a challenge for home bakers, as it requires a candy thermometer and marble slab. ''Ladies in the 1800s were not making fondant at home," Patent asserts. Boston cream pie, as it appeared in 19th- and early-20th- century cookbooks, did not include chocolate and was simply topped with powdered sugar. Patent writes, ''It wasn't until the 1950s that a recipe for Boston cream pie called for a chocolate glaze."

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