No Bake Boston Cream Pie
No Bake Boston Cream Pie is soooo good, y’all! It might surprise you just how easy it is to make! Layers of buttery sweet pound cake filled with silky smooth homemade pastry cream is topped with a rich and creamy chocolate ganache.
My husband, Don, LOVES Boston Cream Pie! It is his favorite dessert ever! Sadly for him, I don’t really like making cakes. Boston Cream Pie might be called a ‘pie’, but there is no question it is a CAKE! For the record, I really don’t like making pies either, so even if it were a pie, he’d still be out of luck <wink>. Because I’m crazy about him, I decided to make him a twist on his favorite dessert, and set out to make Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream! Yes!! That’s a thing, and I’ll be sharing that recipe soon on my blog.
When I was getting everything ready to take photos of the ice cream, I came up with this genius (if I do say so myself) shortcut for making a Boston Cream Pie (cake)! I had all of the ingredients right there in front of me, so I put the ice cream back in the freezer and built this beautiful Boston Cream Pie instead.
Don was downright giddy with excitement at the thought of being able to have his favorite dessert whenever it suited him! And let me tell you what, it suits him all the time! Ever since I was bowled over with this idea, he has been enjoying Boston Cream Pie just about every night! At this rate, I might need to buy stock in Entenmann’s Pound Cake!
This recipe is for individual servings of Boston Cream Pie, but I was able to make 4 individual Boston Cream Pies from one pound cake. You do need to have some things prepared before assembling this luscious cake. My Chocolate Ganache recipe makes up quickly in the microwave and uses only 3 ingredients. I love having this on hand as it is super versatile and makes a great chocolate sauce for topping anything and everything!
You’ll also need to make some pastry cream. Pastry Cream sounds like you need to be a pastry chef to make it, but that is just not the case. You may even have all of the ingredients on hand too! Check out my easy tutorial on How To Make Pastry Cream. It only takes about 15 minutes.
Once you have those two components chilled and ready to go, you just need to slice some pound cake and put everything together. Place one slice of pound cake on a serving plate and top with pastry cream. You can fill this as much or as little as you like. I use about 1 to 2 tablespoons because pastry cream is super delicious, so the more the merrier.
Next place another slice of pound cake on top of the pastry cream, pressing down slightly and top that with more pastry cream.
Now top it all off with one more piece of pound cake, and smother it in rich, decadent chocolate ganache. That’s it!! Enjoy!!
NOTE: A traditional Boston Cream Pie is glazed with a rum syrup before adding the pastry cream. I’ve never cared for the rum in a traditional Boston Cream Pie, so I opted to skip that step. You can certainly go that route if you prefer. To make a rum syrup, dissolve 1/4 cup sugar in a 1/3 cup warm water and mix in 2 tablespoons of dark rum. Then you just brush the syrup on the cake layers to glaze.
No Bake Boston Cream Pie
Ingredients
- 3 slices of pound cake about 1/2" thick I used Entenmann's All Butter Loaf
- Pastry Cream chilled
Chocolate Ganache:
- 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
- ½ cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Prepare Pastry Cream and chill until ready to use.
Chocolate Ganache:
- Place the chocolate in a glass, heat proof bowl.
- In a small sauce pan, bring the cream to a simmer over medium-high heat. Stir often to prevent burning.
- Pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Let sit for 2 to 3 minutes. Use a spoon or whisk to stir the cream and chocolate together until completely smooth. Refrigerate until chilled.
To assemble:
- Place 1 slice of pound cake on a dessert plate and top with 1 to 2 tablespoons of pastry cream
- Top the pastry cream with another slice of pound cake and 1 to 2 tablespoons of pastry cream
- Finish it off with the third slice of pound cake and 1 to 2 tablespoons of chocolate ganache
- Enjoy!
