I am grouchy. I am usually grouchy at Christmas for any number of reasons: crappy weather, sunsets at 4:22 p.m., indigestion, routine disruption, et cetera. Today I am grouchy because I fucked up what was to be the pinnacle of my holiday crafting and baking: the almighty cherpumple. And also because I am on my period, if we’re being honest.
The cherpumple has been covered in many publications as the monstrous pie-cake symbol of horrid holiday gluttony. Some have successfully created the beast:
Image from Dad’s Cooking
I, however, have returned from my quest, empty-handed and vaguely sticky.
The idea of cherpumple is simple: cherry pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, each baked into a cake, then layered and frosted into one behemoth cake.
The execution, it turns out, is less simple.
I blocked out my entire day to create this thing, because it involves cooking three pies and three cakes and then putting them together. An hour and a half in, I had my pies done.
And only then did I realize that either my pies were too big, or my cake pans were too small.
Undaunted (and unwilling to go to the grocery store the Sunday before Christmas for anything less than a life-threatening emergency), I decided I’d just use a 9×13. It wouldn’t be as pretty, sure, but the principal should be the same.
After one false start wherein I poured in some batter, realized I forgot to spray the pan, poured the batter back out, washed the pan, sprayed it, and started over, I began by putting a bit of the cake batter at the bottom.
The part that had worried me the most before I began was de-tinning the pies whole and then somehow inserting them into the cake pan. I’d never attempted to de-tin an entire pie before. I began with the age-old, put-a-plate-on-it-and-turn-it-upside-down trick.
As you can see, that worked fairly well. Then it was time to get it into the cake pan.
As you can see, that failed miserably.
But, I thought it was probably close enough, since it was just going to get baked into a cake anyway, so I pressed on.
When it came out of the oven, I thought this whole crazy idea just might work. It looked good and smelled delicious. I set it aside to let it cool while I mixed up the next batch of cake batter.
And then I went to turn the cake out so I could use the pan for my next pie-cake layer. And, oh, the carnage. As I turned it, my husband (the camera operator because I had run out of hands) screamed, “It’s dripping!”
I had no idea how it could be dripping since it was solid cake all the way around, but lo, it was dripping. Well, more like erupting.
I briefly considered trying to stick the whole thing back in the oven to bake some more or something, to try to salvage my experiment, but in the end, I threw in the towel and decided two pies and some cupcakes were better than three ruined layers of inedible cherpumple.
So there will be no cherpumple at the Foust house this Christmas, alas. I hope we will survive on what little consumerism and gluttony we can scrounge up now.
37 Comments
Get your heating pad and go back to bed. When you wake up you will realize it was all a bad dream.
I was not expecting drippage. Although, anything should be expected here. Would you serve this with turducken?
We are having a “red” Christmas too….it fucking sucks!
I’m so happy you attempted this! But, oh, the dripping. Ew. Seriously though, you’re my favorite. Just don’t tell my husband.
I would be more than happy to eat several types of pie and cake without them being baked into one giant thing. Normally, I’d also probably be cool with eating dripping, under-cooked pie-cake, but my pregnancy has made me more cautious about anything containing raw egg.
ok so i havent made the three tier version but i have made two successful one layer versions your round would be big enough mine were snug but the trick is to pour some batter in the pan first then put the cooled pie in upside down so that the top of the pie is in the bottom of the cake pan see then pour on the rest of the batter and bake that shit on a pan cause it will overflow…but yeah the pie has to be cold makes it more solid that way
worked great for me i did an apple pie in a spice cake and a lemon meringue inside a lemon cake.
My crazy ex-mother-in-law was a firm believer in many old wive’s tales. One of them was that you should never try to bake when you’re on the rag, because the cake or whatever will not rise, or fall shortly after baking.
BTW, I felt so sad for you when I saw the picture of the pie in a gazillion pieces after flipping it. I was like, “aww…”
The lesson here, boys and girls, (mostly just girls) is don’t try to craft while you’re menstruating. It will only lead to disaster.
I work by myself in a small lab and burst out laughing to the point of crying when I saw you smash that pie into that cake pan. (I would have slid it in) Though I am impressed you got it in the pan and not on everything else. And, of course, since I have a cold, I’m coughing too. So during my coughing-laughing-crying-sniffling fit, someone walks in and thinks I “need a moment.” I thought I was having a bad day having to work on Chrsitmas Eve with a cold, but that made it worth it.
I made this successfully awhile back – I realized the frozen pies were not going to fit in the cake pans so I used 8 inch already baked pies from the grocery store bakery and it was a perfect fit – plus that much less baking. It’s really, really good by too. I’m not a fan of box cakes or prebaked pies but together a definite hit.
OMG I laughed so hard reading this! When I saw this in my feed I thought ‘Oh this oughta be good’ I thought about attempting but didn’t for these two reasons…my cake pans aren’t large enough and what if it doesn’t cook all the way. Thanks for sharing your wit and humor with us…Merry Christmas
Sadly even with the drippage all I keep thinking is: Where is the chocolate layer? 🙂
There she is…the pintester I that I know and love. Cherpumple you say? No good can come of this. I would never try to create such beast and certainly not without a bracing cocktail to get me through the procedure. But I’m glad you did if for no other reason than to make me feel slightly superior for not doing it myself. Thanks for the tiny little ego boost and have a wonderful holiday.
did you stick a toothpick in? Because toothpicks tell you your cake is still raw inside…
But there was a pie in the middle.
yea but I always poke in a couple places just to be sure. A quick poke on an outer edge would have given away how incredibly raw it was lol
awww, you two were on the same cycle~ it just needed a tampon.
I’m pretty sure a Cherpumple is like a Unicorn, something of fiction and lore. Reading this made me laugh hysterically and I really feel for you. But I also was waiting for some chocolate layer. But at least you still had some sugar filled carnage for your PMS post-cherpumple-apocalyptic rage, right?
I thought the original looked like some sort of horrible deformity. Kinda creeped me out. broken pie shoulda helped it cook better, not worse!
I’m so sorry. This is why I never bake. It’s gonna be o.k. Maybe you should have used glitter?
Has anyone ever actually eaten one of these things? What was it like? Sounds like it’d be really weird and super sweet. But, then, you know, sometimes stuff works better than you think.
This thing is scarier than Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa Cake. Seriously… look that shit up. It’s the stuff nightmares are made out of.
But this… is so much worse. And her cake at corn nuts on it.
OMG! The thought of Sandra Lee doing Kwanzaa made me laugh so hard I had an asthma attack. After laughing and almost dying I watched the video. The cake looks like a cherpumple took a sh*t and she stuck some candles in it.
Love you, Pintester! and love that you’re doing it all for all of us, just as advertised
I had to check out the Kwanzaa cake, and then also saw the horror that was Sandra Lee’s Hanukkah cake. This lady was making money on this stuff well before Nailed It! was an official meme.
Thanks for keeping the holiday lighthearted, ladies!
Pintester, you need to try that Kwanzaa cake out for us. I don’t know anything about Kwanzaa but I am offended for everyone who celebrates it. Sandra Lee is a hot mess!
Sandra Lee is a scary, white, drunk woman who should have a nice little corner of crafting catastrophes in Hobby Lobby. Yet I cannot look away from that train wreck.
Cherpumple makes me laugh though… just the name.
on the bright side…you still had two perfectly edible pies.
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I think the Diabeetus is a better name for this monstrosity.
I somehow manage to be on my period every damn christmas. Talk about I know what you mean girlfriend!
Hey it takes skills to do an Epic Meal Time bit~
oh god, don’t let my husband see this recipe. his coworker’s wife owns a bakery and they were trying to create this on a professional level. (I’m not sure they succeeded.) he tried to convince me to have at least one of the layers of OUR WEDDING CAKE be pie-cake hybrid. thank goodness the bakery talked him out of it when I could not.
I read your posts so frequently that when I have read them all I sometimes flip through and read again. The picture of the dripping cake gets me every time in that hysterical laugh that wakes up small napping children and terrifies the dogs kind of way. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but that was the best laugh I’ve had since your last post.
PS – When I first heard of the ‘cherpumple’ it was explained that all of these things were layered, and I couldn’t figure out how you would layer anything on top of a pie without it falling over…so there’s an interesting image for you.
That blog seems like you’re proud to be silly…
Wouldn’t you be proud to be this awesome?
I’ve never made a triple layer one, but I was successful in making a double layer pie/cake. My secret was using a spring loaded circle pan for the cake part. Plus, I used wooden dowels to strengthen the beast when I layered them. I highly recommend this, just remember where you put the dowels and warn people that they’re in the cake.