I’ve made piecaken/ Cherpumple in the past and this smaller version has one other difference- the Lemon Cake with Blueberry pie baked into it.
It is also Dairy free, with the substitution of lactose free margarine in the buttercream icing, coconut oil melted with the dairy/nut free dark chocolate drizzle, and reduced fat in the cakes, using apple sauce instead of oil.
The gallery shows the stages- the concept being to have 3 pre made and baked pies, mix 3 cakes up and put cake batter and a pie in each cake pan.
Bake for longer than recommended, about 20 minutes extra.
Chill each layer completely for at least 3 hours before assembling.
Apply a crumb coat to the cool cake.
Chill again and then frost fully and decorate as you wish.
The spiderweb was created by melting coconut oil and dark chocolate together and drizzling it onto the surface, letting it drip.
The gnarly cake bits were cut off from the overflow that happened when the cakes were baking. I thought there might be some spillage, so I put each tin on a cookie sheet, and the overflow looked like cooled lava! Great fluke that added to the finished look!
Boxed mixes
Oat milk for the pumpkin pie and frosting
Pumpkin pie
confetti cake with pumpkin pie
homemade crust made with margarine…
Lemon Cake
Cherry pie
Devils food cake ready for Cherry pie
Lemon/ blueberry layer
Dairy free frosting
3 layers ready to go!
2 layers chilled and stacked
3 layers filled and stacked.
crumb coat and chilling time
Cake drippings create a fab gnarly texture!
More awesome cake drippings and drizzled coconut/dark chocolate .
Marble cake from the leftover batter!
Cake drippings create a fab gnarly texture!
Inside – the 6 desserts in one!Pretty even layers, the layer of “buttercream” was very sweet, but it offset the tartness of the blueberry lemon layer and the cherry layer!
It was a beautiful evening and very well organized!
I liked that they changed the layout this year – last year, the cider tables were along the outer edge of the gazebo, and the patrons were corralled inside. It made queueing up a bit claustrophobic.
This year, the ladies at Savvy changed the layout and had the tables in the middle and the partons could spill out onto the grassy area if need be, or quickly grab their sample and shuffle off the to the numberous tables set up for us to enjoy a quiet < or raucous> drink and conversations.
The band provided gentle back ground music, and while some of us found the pretzels #StaleAsF@#K, I was happy to have them available to offset the imbibing! and the Donut Rain on my Parade food truck provided a simple concept for flavour coated mini donuts that were enjoyed by all!
Pics:
Hot Cows in the cityChecking out the Bovine!drunken squirrel was nibbling on something that cause much falling over and stumbling.Dar brought a snack to share!tried for an aerial view…Check in here!this one was great!Rood < Red in another language> was pretty good.tried all three- pretty goodDisco Lemonade – light and waaaay easy to drink. Elderflower – ok..and the band played on.pretty goodYum – like candymmm okay… but I like bubbles. #flatciderSelfie 1Selfie 2Selfie 3Shiny with Pinot Noir – was pretty nice!Enjoying their samples!this one was great!Rood < Red in another language> was pretty good.twas very goodLa gang la – thanks to our neighbour table who offered to take our pic for us!OMG yum – like light caramel…I’ve lost track now – I think it was ok.and the textured clouds framed the setting sun as we trundled into an Uber to head home!
This morning’s walk found me blessed with a gift of seeing a beautiful Raven up close and personal.
Just sitting on the bench in the park where I walk almost every day and allowed me to snatch a moment or two on my camera.
Please enjoy this brief moment of simple Raven wisdom…
She’s old and yet youth erupts from her very pores.
She is gnarled in the truest sense.
She has depth carved into her from years of living.
She has tendrils of new life reaching out of her towards to sun.
She is shelter for those scrambling into her arms, support for those who need fuel to fly, and a presence to be witnessed.
She’s all people of age and wisdom and beauty.
She’s respect and appreciation for the “Imperfect”.
She’s a moment in a vastness.
She’s a gift and a reminder to see beyond and within.
She’s Ancient and Awesome
So, apparently, back in the early fall of 2006, John Scalzi made an awesome pie and posted the recipe here.
Somehow, over the past couple of months, this link came through my social media feed – and I clicked through and thought – yeah, that does sound perfect.
“Dark. Rich. And oh so bittersweet.”
So, today. For Christians it is “Good Friday”; for the Jewish community, it is Passover; and in the US today is National Garlic Day and tomorrow is Husband Appreciation Day… before I get lost down that rabbit hole, coming back to Canada and for me, today is the beginning of some cocoon time over this weekend, having even sent my furbaby off to visit her Aunt D.
And I suddenly wanted to make pie. And then I remembered the Schadenfreude Pie!
With it having been Aunt D.’s < Sprocket’s “Aunt”/ 2nd mom, not my Aunt> birthday recently, AND Happy Belated Kristine, <John Scalzi’s lovely wife>, I could make 1 for us, 1 for her and a mini so that I could make sure it was actually as good as the recipe sounded before sending a fresh pie off with her! The mini was amazing – will share our remaining pie with the hubby to show him appreciation… even here in Canada…
My modifications bring it across the border into Canada < northern US could use these variations too, I’m sure!> as well as being based on what I had in the cupboard.
The original ingredients < be sure to visit the World’s First Schadenfreude Pie post for the rest of the mixing and baking directions>:
What I changed:
1 cup dark corn syrup – 1 cup dark maple syrup – or any colour maple syrup
½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips. ¼ cup white chocolate chips and ¼ cup black cocoa
Along with the cinnamon, I added 1 teaspoon of powdered ginger
I skipped the booze as I did not have anything handy – but would try it in the future!
and I rolled out some previously made frozen pie crust – classic style- and split it into 2 smaller pie tins and 1 mini and I prebaked them for about 10 minutes before filling them.
Beyond that, I followed the original recipe and it is perfect.
Thank you, John Scalzi, for bringing more enjoyment to my world – he’s a fun writer too folks!
I would probably serve with whipped cream < Aunt D’s suggestion> and maybe have a shot of dark rum or the suggested booze with it, or just a nice dark coffee…
The mini cooked a bit faster and may have had more of the molasses in it.
Aunt D’s pie – no wound.
Our pie – slight wound from poking it to check that it was baked
Oh, and if you are wondering what Schadenfreude is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
Today, a cluster of good friends all headed out with bird themed, fairy themed and awesome themed characters to join a bunch of other similarly dressed folk for an afternoon tea!
The Tea with the Fairy Queen event brought out amazing costumes ranging from steam punk, to garden party, to dark fairy and more – all in the cause of raising funds for the Wild Bird care centre .
Organized by Christina of Caz Designs and her crew of amazing folk, this event gave us a chance to do good while being silly!
Here’s some pics of the ladies I enjoyed the company of this afternoon!
Mom is having a significant birthday in a few days, and for scheduling, the BIG PARTY was this weekend.
I offered to make her dessert. Upon asking her what she wanted, her quick response was Black Forest Cake – I got this!
We have a few varied dietary needs withithn the family realm though and so I also offered to bring something non-dairy/gluten free as a side snack for those folk.
Another awesome baker in the family, Sarah, offered to make a cake as well to cover the full-on healthy desssert option. Her cake is amazing:
Sarah’s cake
My plans: cake, moulded roses as an accent, and a variant on my granny’s butterscotch cream pe – meringues …and then I went way off road for this “variant” – maple curd
Black Forest Cake :
3 layers of chocolate fudge cake – a box mix using the lower fat option – baked in 8 inch pans
500 ml Whipping cream with added Oatker Stabilizer as this puppy has to travel!
1 can cherry pie filing – ½ sugar very – but yes, in a can
1 block from a full size bar, shaved chocolate – I hate making shaved chocolate, but I had a lovely Lindt dark chocolate bar so I was able to shave the minimum I needed to cover the patchy whipped cream sides of the cake.
Once the alyers were baked, I shaved the domes off the layers to make them flat. Assemble: layering cherry pie filling on the bottom layer, then filling and whipped cream on the 2nd layer. Cover with whipped cream in the style of your choosing and sprinkle the shaved chocolate and few saved cherries on top to make it pretty.
Meringues:
4 egg whites at room temperature
¼ tsp cream of tartar
¼ cup icing sugar – too much – I’ll use less in the future
Whip it up good, pipe onto parchment lined cookies sheets and bake for 55 minutes at 250 degrees, then turn off the oven and let them sit for another hour or more.
Maple Curd:
The big adventure…
In a sauce pan, mix together really well:
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons coconut milk powder
Then add and mix all together
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup water
Cook on medium heat until it boils and stirring constantly let it reach 105 degrees on a thermometer – maybe higher would have been better – that’s just what I did.
In a small bowl, beat
4 egg yolks
Then pour some of the hot syrup into the bowl, mixxing to heat up the egg yolks, then pour the mix back into the sauce pan and let cook for another 5 minutes.
Bring off the heat and add
1tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon coconut oil
Stir well and pour into mason jars. Cool and store in fridge. Shake well before using.
This created a sauce that was drizzled over the meringues – giving a light sugar kick without dairy or gluten – but does have eggs.
Moulded chocolate roses:
Based on the method from my previous post about using moulded chocolate, I once again melted the chocolate and added the honey, then covered it with plastic and let it chill on the counter for a few horus while I did other stuff.
120 grams of white chocolate discs
1 ounce of honey by weight
I am canadian and thus bilingual when it comes to measurements – my scale has both
After kneading the chilled chocolate, I then played witha few ways to create the roses.
The first one was made by shaping small bits of chocolate into flattened petal shapes, but they had a lot of length to them and I wouold cut it off at the abse after adding it.
For the next one I tried rolling a tiny ball in my hand then squishing it with my thumb to create each petal, and placing them overlaping around a started bud/blob. This worked better and I continued with this method for the remaining ones.
Eventually, with both techniques, it built up a lot so I have to cut off the base on each one so that it was not too thick.
I think I did pretty well for a first time! *pats self on back*
For my final birthday cake, I wanted to create the chest burster, and was originally going to make another black forest cake, but we still had leftovers from the first one. I opted instead to go with a spice cake made from a french vanilla box cake mix.
I used the lower fat version on the box – using applesauce instead of oil, and added about 1 tsp of each – cardamon, allspice, cinnamon,and ginger to the cake batter.
I proceeded as per the box and chose to use 3 pans instead of 2 to speed the cooking time and it gave me more layering of flavours!
Box mix of french vanilla – used apple sauce instead of oil and added spices!3 – 8 inch cake pans3 gorgeous fool proof layers!
Once the cakes cooled, I wanted to have a nice gentle flavour without being too sweet, so I had purchased some pre-made dulce de leche, and mixed about ⅓ cup with a few tablespoons of heavy cream and whipped it all together. I think butterscotch pudding would work in a pinch too 🙂
dulce de leche with heavy cream to be whipped together for the filling
After slicing off the domes of the layers – making them all level, I stacked the three layers with apple sauce and the dulce/whip fillings.
layering with apple sauce and then the cream filling.
the cream filling over the apple sauce.
To create a nice base for the insertion of Fred, I built up the top with more sauce and cream filling and the sliced off domes, cutting the centre hole for Fred.
Capping it off with one of the cut off parts – to create a mound at the top of the cake. The hole is for the little guy!
And on to normal cake finishing – notes with each picture.
Crumb coat then chill – butter cream mixed with Dulce de leche.the finishing layer of buttercream.I like to smooth out the surface with wet fingers – well washed, of course! It lets the sugar melt just a tiny bit and creates a smoother look.
The final addition is – let’s call him Fred!
Sketch from DragoArt which was my inspiration!
I made him from rice crispie treats. I used pre-made ones as I did not want to purchase everything to make them and have leftover marshmallows etc. – but they are nut free…
stacking and squeezinggetting there…
The moulding chocolate was a new adventure and these folks here explained it best – so click to check their link – you can see most of the details there.
The difference with mine is that I used honey as a direct substitute for corn syrup and it worked perfectly.
Molding Chocolate – approx 250 gramsHoney – approx 3 ounces by weight.The seized chocolate sealed in a bag and resting for about 8 hours.
And TADA !
Kneaded and moulded around the base and carved:
Hey Fred!You can see the Rice Krispie square base that I left uncovered – it gave me a bit to handle for insertion into the cake later.
And finally – fully set up at the party:
Meet Fred, dressed in cherry red…. pie filling syrup that is…
Fred has just emerged
Fred is happy to see you
Fred appreciates your sacrifice.
Two middle stages of Xenomorph life and the Birthday Guy!
