Cherpumple: the Turducken of Thanksgiving Desserts
This Thanksgiving, there is a new portmanteau stealing the spotlight. It has been boasted as the turducken of Thanksgiving desserts.
Enter the cherpumple.
What is the cherpumple, might you ask? Well, it is a sinfully decadent dessert creation. It is an unparalleled top off to any and every Thanksgiving feast.
The cherpumple is three-layer cake with an entire pie baked into each layer -- a cherry pie baked inside a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside a yellow cake and an apple pie baked inside a spice cake. The layers are then stacked and coated with cream-cheese frosting.
The cherpumple was created by Los Angeles native Charles Phoenix a few Thanksgivings ago. He came up with the idea after he saw all of his family members taking a sliver of each pie for dessert.
I was inspired, Phoenix told The Wall Street Journal, to combine all my family's traditional holiday desserts into one. Phoenix insists it puts the kitsch in kitchen.
Structurally speaking, the cherpumple is an architectural nightmare. Since pies are quite heavy and have little support at their centers, many cherpumples fall apart. The cherpumple could weigh in at as much as 21-pounds.
The physics of it provide a kind of 'will or won't it collapse' situation, said Phoenix. But if your cherpumple does collapse, you can act like it was meant to happen and serve with spoons.
Phoenix has had some mishaps himself. He once made a cherpumple in Denver and it collapsed into a big mound, kind of like a volcano with three different lava flows.
The 48-year-old baker features a gallery of photographs of cherpumples on his Web site, made by other adventurous pie-lovers.
The Journal cites another brave baker, Julie Van Rosendaal from Calgary, Alberta, who made the cherpumple for a dinner party. The theme was Seven Deadly Sins and the cherpumple was - you guessed it - gluttony.
People were not only disgusted by it, but wanted to eat it, too, said Van Rosendaal. I think it could totally catch on.
Feelings on the cherpumple are mixed.
A blogger from Neatorama wrote, It represents all that remains good and right in this fallen world... I feel a rekindling of hope for the human race because we can still do great things like this.
Some Twitter users are not as enthused. One user posted: One of the many things wrong with the world.
Do you want to try the cherpumple? Charles Phoenix's recipe is below. Warning: This dessert is not for the faint of heart.
-1 8 frozen pumpkin pie
- 1 box spice cake mix
- 1 8 frozen apple pie
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 1 8 frozen cherry pie
- 1 box white cake mix
- eggs and oil according to the cake mix
- 3 tall tubs of cream-cheese frosting
- 3 8.5 round cake pans
Bake pies according to instructions and cool to room temperature overnight. Mix cake batter according to instructions. For each layer pour about 1 1/3 cup of batter in the cake pan. Carefully de-tin the baked pie and place it face up on top of the batter in the cake pan. Push down lightly to release any trapped air. Pour enough batter on top to cover the pie. Bake according to box instructions. Cool and remove from pans then frost it like you mean it.
Watch Phoenix bake one on YouTube.
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