The Chocolate-Apple-Cake-Pie!

I've always preferred pie over cake with one exception....

While I do have a bit of a sweet tooth, it does have its limits. If given the choice between eating cake and eating pie, I'll almost always choose the pie! For some people It's a hard decision. So why not have both at the same time? You saw some pictures of one version of this project and now some folks asked for step-by-step instructions. Here it is!

Enter the cake-pie! My good friend Brian (of twelve years+) is a bit of a comic book reading math geek (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that). As a result, he comes up with some zany ideas. This particular project was originally seen at a Pi (you know 3.1459....) celebration. Having no idea on how it was accomplished, we both decided to attempt a vegan version of our own creation. The challenge was to cook an apple pie inside a chocolate cake. It's ridiculously easy and the ingredients simple.

For the cake I've chosen a delicious, yet simple, chocolate-blueberry concoction with a coconut almond frosting topped off with sprinkles. The pie inside is a macintosh apple-pie with a hint of cinnamon and agave nectar. Mmmmm, mmmm, Nom!

The pie and the cake are mixed separately and partially cooked separately before being assembled together to finishing baking. The Pie recipe I'm going to share with you by itself makes a very delicious and healthy concoction. The crust of a pie can make or break its success (both in shear functionality AND flavor).

Ideally you'll need three mixing bowls, but may easily squeek by with two. You'll also need two cake pans to make two halves of the cake that will be later assembled into one and a pie tin that fits inside your cake tins. We used two sized pans for the cakes.

I don't recall where I picked up the pie crust recipe and it's changed here and there. The cake recipe is based on a delicious black-out cake from Veganomicon without the ganche and without the raspberries and doubled.

Ingredients Needed For Entire Project

For the 2-Crust Pie (Base and lid):

2 Cups of Unbleached Flour
1 teaspoon of Salt
1/2 Cup of Olive Oil or Canola Oil if you must
3 Tablespoon of Cold Water

The Pie Filling:

As many Macantosh Apples as you'd care to slice up!
A dash of cinnamon
Agave

Making the Pie Crust:

In a Large Mixing Bowl, mix/sift the flour and salt together. To be honest, I generally just take a wisk and give everything a good mix.

Add oil and mix well.

Sprinkle a little bit (3 Tablespoons worth) of cold water over it all and mix well.

Mix the dough with your hands into a smooth ball adding more oil if it is too dry and divide the ball in half.

Next, roll out one ball of dough to the size of the pan you're using and place into pie pan. I prefer to cook in glass as I find it sticks less and doesn't require greasing.

Cut-Up a bunch of apples in slices and fill the pie. As a personal choice, I don't bother skinning the apples but you may wish to. Next dribble some agave over the apples and sprinkle as much cinnamon as you'd like.

Next roll out the top.

So now you have the two pieces of wax paper crisscrossed on your countertop. Now lay down a ball of pie dough and flatten it somewhat with your hands. Now take the next two pieces of wax paper and crisscross them on top of the pie dough. Now roll out the dough with your rolling pin. I find that I tend to start in the middle of the dough and roll it toward me - then I turn the dough (easily done since it is between wax paper) and roll it toward me on that side, etc. - continuing until you have rolled out the entire dough.

Now carefully peel away the top two layers - then turn the dough upside down (with remaining wax paper on top facing you) onto a clean and empty pie pan. Put your filling in and then do the same procedure to place the top crust on top of the pie. (Remember to put some water on the rim of the bottom crust before adding the top crust.)

Now you can trim the excess crust (maybe leaving 1/2” beyond the edge of the pie pan) and then fold the edges of the two crusts under and form into the edge that you mold into shape.







To be finished soon!