Boston Cream Poke Cake with Pudding and Ganache

Boston cream poke cake takes the three parts of a Boston cream pie, the yellow cake, the vanilla custard and the chocolate top, and stacks them in a single 9-by-13 pan with no layers to split and no pastry cream to cook. A boxed yellow cake is baked, poked all over while it is warm, and flooded with instant vanilla pudding that runs down into the holes. A two-ingredient chocolate ganache goes over the top, and the fridge does the rest.

It is about twenty minutes of actual work, and the result is a Boston cream poke cake that is genuinely better the next day, when the pudding has soaked into the crumb and the ganache has set to a clean, glossy sheet that cuts into tidy squares. I have made this for birthdays, potlucks and one very long Sunday lunch, and there has never once been a square left in the pan.

Boston Cream Pie or Boston Cream Poke Cake?

Boston cream pie is not a pie at all. It is a sponge cake split in two, filled with vanilla pastry cream and iced with chocolate, first served at Boston’s Parker House hotel in the 1850s and named at a time when cakes and pies were often baked in the same tins. Massachusetts made it the official state dessert in 1996, and every diner in New England still has one under a glass dome.

A poke cake keeps the same three flavors and changes the construction. Instead of a filling between two layers, the cake is baked as one sheet, holes are poked across the top, and a thin pudding is poured over so it sinks into the crumb. The chocolate goes on top of the set pudding rather than on a bare cake. What you lose in height you gain in moisture, because the custard is inside the cake rather than sitting between two slices of it.

Boston cream poke cake is also far more forgiving. There is no splitting a sponge horizontally, no pastry cream to temper, and no ganache sliding off a domed top. The pan does the shaping, and the fridge does the finishing.

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Ingredient Notes

Ten ingredients go into Boston cream poke cake, and four of them are already inside the box. The cake layer pictured above is the mix with its eggs, oil and water, and that is all it needs to be.

• Yellow cake mix. One standard 15.25-ounce box, plus the eggs, oil and water the box asks for. Yellow gives the buttery color the classic pie has; a butter golden or French vanilla mix works just as well.
• Eggs, oil and water. Whatever the box lists, usually three eggs, half a cup of oil and one cup of water. Room-temperature eggs whisk in more smoothly.
• Instant vanilla pudding mix. Two 3.4-ounce boxes, and they must be instant, not cook-and-serve. Instant pudding sets cold, which is what lets it run into the holes and then firm up in the fridge.
• Cold milk. Three cups, less than the pudding box asks for, so the layer sets firm enough to slice. Whole milk gives the richest result; 2 percent works.
• Vanilla extract. Half a teaspoon in the pudding makes a boxed mix taste noticeably more like real pastry cream.
• Semisweet chocolate chips. One cup for the ganache. A chopped 6-ounce bar melts even smoother, and bittersweet gives a darker, less sweet top.
• Heavy cream. Two-thirds of a cup, heated just until it steams. Do not substitute milk here, because the ganache will not set.
• Butter. One tablespoon stirred into the ganache gives the top its shine.

Which Cake Mix Makes the Best Poke Cake

Any yellow or vanilla mix works for Boston cream poke cake, but a few things make a difference. A mix labeled butter golden or butter recipe bakes up closer to the crumb of a scratch sponge and holds the pudding without turning pasty. Standard yellow mix is lighter and soaks up more, which some people prefer. Avoid anything with pudding already in the mix, because it bakes denser and leaves less room for the layer that goes on top.

If you would rather bake from scratch, a homemade yellow cake works exactly the same way. Use any recipe that fills a 9-by-13 pan, bake it a couple of minutes less than usual so it stays tender, and poke it while it is still warm. The pudding and ganache steps do not change.

How To Make Boston Cream Poke Cake

First, heat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Tip the cake mix into a large bowl, crack in the eggs, and pour in the water and oil. Whisk for about two minutes, until the batter is smooth and pale with no dry streaks.

Next, pour the batter into the dish, level the top, and bake for 25 to 28 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool in the pan for ten minutes. It should be warm, not hot, when you poke it.

Then take the handle of a wooden spoon and poke holes over the whole cake about an inch apart, pushing down to within a half inch of the bottom. Wiggle the handle a little in each hole so the opening is wider than a pencil. Small holes fill with pudding much less well than you would expect.

After that, whisk the two pudding mixes with the cold milk and the vanilla for about a minute, until it has just begun to thicken. Pour it over the warm cake immediately, while it is still pourable, and use an offset spatula to push it across the top and down into the holes. Cover the pan and refrigerate for at least an hour so the pudding sets.

The Ganache and the Chill

Put the chocolate chips and butter in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream in a small pan until it steams and bubbles at the edge, pour it over the chocolate, and leave it alone for three minutes before stirring from the center outward until it is glossy and smooth. Let it cool for ten minutes, so it thickens slightly and will not melt the pudding.

Finally, pour the ganache over the chilled pudding layer and tilt the pan or use a spatula to spread it to the edges. Return the pan to the fridge for at least four hours, or overnight, until the ganache is set firm enough to cut cleanly.

How To Tell When Boston Cream Poke Cake Is Done

There are two doneness checks, and neither is about the oven. The cake itself is done when a toothpick in the middle comes out with no wet batter, usually 25 to 28 minutes for a boxed mix in a 9-by-13 pan.

The one that matters is the chill. Press a fingertip lightly on the ganache: done Boston cream poke cake feels firm and cool with no give, and the fingertip comes away clean. If it dents or smears, it needs another hour. A knife dragged through a finished cake leaves a clean edge; on an underchilled one the pudding oozes and the chocolate drags. Four hours is the minimum, and overnight is better, both for slicing and for flavor.

Cut squares should show three clear bands: the yellow cake with veins of pudding running down through it, a pale custard layer, and the dark chocolate on top. If the pudding layer is thin and the holes look empty, the pudding was poured too late, after it had set, which is the one mistake to avoid next time.

Make It Ahead

Boston cream poke cake is a dessert you should make the day before. The cake needs at least four hours to set after the ganache goes on, and it is at its best after twelve to twenty-four hours in the fridge, when the pudding has soaked evenly through the crumb and the ganache has lost its raw shine. Cover the pan tightly with foil or a lid rather than plastic wrap touching the chocolate, which will pull it away.

For a party, bake and fill it two days ahead and add the ganache the night before. It cuts more neatly if you run the knife under hot water and wipe it between cuts.

Storing Boston Cream Poke Cake

Because of the milk-based pudding, Boston cream poke cake has to live in the fridge. Cover the pan and it keeps for four days, and it stays moist the whole time; the only change is that the ganache dulls slightly. Serve it cold or let a square sit out for fifteen minutes to take the chill off the chocolate.

Do not leave it on the counter for a party. Illinois Extension puts cream and custard-based desserts in the two-hour rule: anything with a dairy filling should go back in the fridge within two hours of coming out, and sooner in a warm room.

Freezing works better than you might think. Cut the set cake into squares, freeze them on a tray until hard, then wrap each one and freeze for up to two months. Thaw overnight in the fridge. The pudding layer can weep a little on thawing, so this is a good way to save leftovers rather than the way to make it ahead.

Variations and Substitutions

Chocolate on chocolate. Swap the yellow mix for devil’s food and keep the vanilla pudding. It looks less like a Boston cream pie and tastes a lot like a cream-filled snack cake, in the same family as our Ho Ho cake.

Homemade pudding. If you keep a batch of vanilla pudding in the fridge, use three cups of it while it is still warm and pourable, straight from the stove. It sets softer than instant, so give the cake a full overnight chill.

Frosting instead of ganache. A tub of chocolate frosting, warmed for twenty seconds in the microwave until it pours, is the shortcut a lot of families use. It is sweeter and softer than ganache and never sets quite as glossy, but nobody has ever refused a square.

Banana cream. Layer a sliced banana over the poked cake before the pudding goes on, and use banana cream pudding mix. Eat within two days.

Boozy. Two tablespoons of dark rum or Baileys in the pudding milk, or the full treatment in our Baileys chocolate poke cake.

Smaller pan. Halve everything and bake in an 8-by-8 pan for 22 to 25 minutes. The chilling times do not change.

What to Serve with Boston Cream Poke Cake

Boston cream poke cake needs very little alongside it. A few fresh raspberries or strawberries on the plate cut the sweetness, and a small pour of strong coffee is the classic pairing in the diners that serve the original pie. For a birthday table, this and a Texas sheet cake cover both the chocolate and the vanilla camps from one baking session.

Serve it cold from the fridge in summer, when the ganache snaps a little under the fork, or let the squares sit for fifteen minutes in winter so the chocolate softens. Either way, plate it with a fork and a napkin, because the pudding layer is generous.

Boston Cream Poke Cake FAQ

More Questions About Poke Cakes

Boston cream poke cake is the version of the classic you can make on a weeknight and serve to a crowd on Saturday, and the day in between only makes it better. If you like a cake that soaks up its own filling, the chocolate buttermilk cake is the next one to bake.