West Boston Cream Pie

This cake-pie hybrid is a per­fect exam­ple of how nos­tal­gia-based our desserts are. I feel like every kid had a favorite prepack­aged snack cake they would spend their allowance on at the dép, usu­al­ly either a Jos Louis or May West. I was team May West, so long as I ate it out of sight of my mom, who had banned her fat kids from eat­ing more junk food. (For any non-Cana­di­ans who don’t know, a May West cake is a lit­tle, round white cake filled with cream and cov­ered in choco­late, kind of like a Hostess.)

I also love a Boston cream donut, which — com­pris­ing sponge cake, pas­try cream, and choco­late glaze — is not so dis­tant from my child­hood cake. This recipe is my attempt to cross the two. The dif­fer­ent stages take some time, so you should tack­le it on a week­end when you have extra time on hand. We’ve made some adjust­ments, using a crust made of Mon­tre­al bagels and pret­zel salt, a chif­fon cake, and a choco­late donut glaze. There you have it, the West Boston Cream Pie. The only com­ment my wife has about it is ​“This pie is god­damn delicious.”

Makes 1 (10-Inch) Pie

Vanil­la Chif­fon Cake

2 eggs, yolks + whites sepa- rat­ed, at room temperature

37 g (2½ table­spoons) neu­tral oil

2 g (½ tea­spoon) pure vanil­la extract

60 g (¼ cup) cold water

79 g (½ cup + 1 table­spoon) flour

4 g (1 tea­spoon) bak­ing pow­der 1 g (¼ tea­spoon) salt

66 g (1÷3 cup) + 36 g (3 table- spoons) gran­u­lat­ed sugar

Choco­late Glaze

83 g (2÷3 cup) pow­dered sug­ar 37 g (2½ table­spoons) whole milk

15 g (2½ table­spoons) cocoa powder

2 g (½ tea­spoon) pure vanil­la extract

Assem­bly

Vanil­la Cus­tard (Recipe is below image.)

Sug­ar Cook­ie Bagel Crust (Recipe is below image.), baked and cooled

Vanil­la Chif­fon Cake 

Chan­til­ly Cream (Recipe is below image.)

Choco­late Glaze

Make the Vanil­la Chif­fon Cake:

Pre­heat the oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch dis­pos- able pie tin.

In a medi­um bowl, whisk togeth­er the egg yolks, oil, vanil­la, and cold water.

Into a large bowl, sift the flour, bak­ing pow­der, salt, and 66 g (1÷3 cup) sug­ar. Add the liq­uid mix­ture to the dry mix­ture and whisk until smooth.

In a stand mix­er fit­ted with the whisk attach­ment, whisk the egg whites on medi­um-high until frothy. Turn the mix­er to low and grad­u­al­ly add the remain­ing 36 g (3 table­spoons) of sug­ar. Increase the speed to high and whip until stiff peaks form.

Gen­tly whisk one-third of the whites into the cake bat­ter to light­en it up. Using a large spat­u­la, gen­tly fold in the rest of the whites until no streaks remain. Pour into the pre­pared tin and spread even­ly with a small off­set spatula.

Bake for 12 to 15 min­utes, until a sharp knife or tooth­pick insert­ed in the cen­ter comes out near­ly clean. As soon as it’s out of the oven, run a knife or small off­set spat­u­la around the edge of the pan, then turn it out onto a cool­ing rack. (If the cake remains in the pan as it cools, it will shrink and become dense.) Allow to cool com­plete­ly before assem­bling the pie.

Make the Choco­late Glaze:

In a bowl, whisk togeth­er all ingre­di­ents, and set aside until ready to assem­ble. It will keep in an air­tight con­tain­er at room tem­per­a­ture for 2 to 3 days.

Assem­ble: 

Pre­heat the oven to 375°F.

Pour the chilled Vanil­la Cus­tard into the Sug­ar Cook­ie Bagel Crust, and smooth with an off­set spat­u­la. Bake for 20 to 25 min­utes, until the edges are set and the cen­ter jig­gles slight­ly. Don’t wor­ry if the top is dark­er in some spots, but be care­ful not to over­bake. Allow to cool com­plete­ly at room tem­per­a­ture, then refrig­er­ate until cold before assem­bling the rest of the pie.

Once cooled, smooth a ¼‑inch lay­er of Chan­til­ly over top. Invert the chif­fon cake so that the domed top is now the bot­tom, and gen­tly place it on top of the Chan­til­ly. Spread more Chan­til­ly onto the cake to thin­ly cov­er the top and sides. Pour the Choco­late Glaze over the entire pie. To neat­en things up, you could trans­fer the remain­ing Chan­til­ly to a pip­ing bag and pipe a bor­der on the top of the pie. The assem­bled pie will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Sug­ar Cook­ie Bagel Crust

Sug­ar Cook­ie Crumbs

280 g (2 cups) flour

2 g (½ tea­spoon) bak­ing powder

2 g (½ tea­spoon) salt

113 g (½ cup) but­ter, at room temperature

212 g (1 cup + 1 table­spoon) gran­u­lat­ed sugar

1 egg, at room temperature

6 g (1½ tea­spoons) pure vanil­la extract

Bagel Crumbs

4 Mon­tre­al-style sesame bagels

Bagel Crust

113 g (½ cup) butter

100 g (¾ cup) Sug­ar Cook­ie Crumbs

100 g (¾ cup) Bagel Crumbs 50 g (¼ cup) gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar 9 g (1 table­spoon) sesame seeds 3 g (¾ tea­spoon) pret­zel salt

Make the Sug­ar Cook­ie Crumbs:

Pre­heat the oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, whisk togeth­er the flour, bak­ing pow­der, and salt.

In a stand mix­er fit­ted with the pad­dle attach­ment, cream the but­ter and sug­ar until pale and fluffy. With the mix­er run­ning, add the egg and vanil­la. Scrape down the bowl and con­tin­ue to mix togeth­er until homo­ge­neous. On low speed, grad­u­al­ly add the flour mix­ture. Mix togeth­er just until a dough forms.

Turn the dough out onto a clean work sur­face and divide it in half. Roll out each half to 1/10 inch thick. Care­ful­ly trans­fer each half onto two parch­ment-lined sheet trays. Bake for 5 to

10 min­utes, until the edges are gold­en and the ​“cook­ie” is mat­te. Let cool com­plete­ly. Leave the oven on for the Bagel Crumbs.

Break up the cook­ies with your hands, then trans­fer to a food proces­sor. Pulse until it reach­es the tex­ture of cook­ie crumbs. Store left­overs in an air­tight con­tain­er for up to 3 weeks.

Make the Bagel Crumbs:

While the cook­ie crust is cool­ing, make the Bagel Crumbs. Slice the bagels hor­i­zon­tal­ly ¼ inch thick and spread them on a sheet tray. Bake for 4 to 7 min­utes, flip­ping them halfway through. The bagel chips should be dry and crisp, but not too browned. Let cool com­plete­ly, then break up with your hands. Leave the oven on for the Bagel Crust.

Pulse the bagel chips in the food proces­sor until they’re the tex­ture of crumbs. Store in an air­tight con­tain­er for up to 3 weeks.

Make the Bagel Crust:

Melt the but­ter in a small saucepan. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, stir togeth­er all remain­ing ingre­di­ents. Then, stir in the melt­ed but­ter until every­thing is moist­ened. Trans­fer the mix­ture to a 10-inch pie tin (or a 10x12-inch pie tin for the Cin­co de Mayo Pie). Using the bot­tom of a mea­sur­ing cup, bring it up the sides of the pie tin and even­ly flat­ten the bot­tom. Bake for 5 min­utes (or 12 to 18 min­utes for the Cin­co de Mayo Pie), or until golden.

If nec­es­sary, reshape the crust while it’s still warm and pli­able. Let cool com­plete­ly before using.

Chan­til­ly Cream

63 g (½ cup) pow­dered sugar

3 g (1½ tea­spoons) dried milk pow­der (option­al, for stability)

2 g (½ tea­spoon) pure vanil­la extract

In a stand mix­er fit­ted with the whisk attach­ment, whip the cream to soft peaks. Low­er the speed and add the pow­dered sug­ar and milk pow­der. Increase the speed to medi­um and beat for 10 sec­onds. Add the vanil­la and con­tin­ue whip­ping on high speed until JUST SHY OF stiff peaks, about 30 sec­onds longer. Do not over­whip, or you’ll lose the vel­vety qual­i­ty we want. This is best used the same day.

Vanil­la Custard

Makes about 2 cups

255 g (1 cup + 1 table­spoon) whole milk

80 g (1÷3 cup) heavy cream 12 g (1 table­spoon) + 50 g

(¼ cup) gran­u­lat­ed sugar

½ vanil­la pod, cut length­wise and seeds scraped, or 6 g (1½ tea­spoons) pure vanil­la extract

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

20 g (2 table­spoons) cornstarch

1 g (¼ tea­spoon) salt

60 g (¼ cup + 1 tea­spoon) mas­car­pone, at room temperature

In a medi­um saucepan, bring the milk, cream, 12 g (1 table­spoon) sug­ar, and vanil­la pod and seeds to a simmer.

Mean­while, in a small bowl, whisk togeth­er the remain­ing 50 g (¼ cup) sug­ar, and the egg and egg yolk, corn­starch, and salt until pale. Once the milk mix­ture is sim­mer­ing, slow­ly stream a small amount of it into the egg mix­ture, whisk­ing con­stant­ly to tem­per the eggs.

Trans­fer the mix­ture into the same saucepan. Cook over medi­um-low heat, whisk­ing often, until it begins to thick­en and bub­bles appear. Switch to a spat­u­la (to avoid incor­po­rat­ing air) and stir vig­or­ous­ly for an addi­tion­al 30 sec­onds, mov­ing the pot off the heat as nec­es­sary to avoid over­cook­ing the custard.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl.

Using a hand blender, blend the mas­car­pone into the hot cus­tard.1 Cov­er with plas­tic wrap so that it touch­es the sur­face of the cus­tard. Let cool com­plete­ly in the fridge, at least 4 hours or overnight. It will keep in the fridge for about 1 week.

Excerpt­ed from Arthurs: Home of the Nosh by Rae­gan Stein­berg, Alexan­der Cohen, and Eve­lyne Eng. Copy­right © 2025 Rae­gan Stein­berg, Alexan­dre Cohen, and Eve­lyne Eng. Pho­tographs by Karoli­na Jez. Pub­lished by Appetite by Ran­dom House®, a divi­sion of Pen­guin Ran­dom House Cana­da Lim­it­ed. Repro­duced by arrange­ment with the Pub­lish­er. All rights reserved.