Boston cream pie was invented at the Parker House Hotel in Boston in 1855, when the French chef put a thick ribbon of custard between two layers of sponge cake and topped them with a chocolate glaze. It originally was known as Parker House chocolate pie, and it was in fact a variation on a dessert called pudding cake, which dates back to Colonial times. No one can say with certainty how it got to be called a pie—it is most definitely a cake—but a logical explanation would be that it almost always is cut into triangular wedges like pie. In 1996, Boston cream pie was named Massachusetts’s official dessert.