This Dessert Version Of Turducken Is The Ultimate Thanksgiving Meal-Ender
Are you planning to go really over-the-top with this year's Thanksgiving dinner? Watching too many Food Network holiday specials can have that affect on a person, and nothing says epic opulence like food stuffed inside of other food. Perhaps the most famous matryoshka doll food creation is the turducken, which — as its name reveals — consists of a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. This holiday trifecta was popularized by Hall of Fame football coach John Madden (yes, the namesake of the video game franchise that comes complete with its own curse).
If you've ever had, or wanted to try, turducken, you'll be thrilled to know that the dish has a sweet counterpart: According to Taste of Home, this would be the piecaken, a decadent dessert invented by pastry chef Zac Young in 2015 as a mashup of two favorite holiday pies, pecan and pumpkin. The two treats are topped with a nutmeg-spiced cake and frosted with cinnamon buttercream.
How to get your own piecaken
If you're wondering where you can buy one of these, unfortunately, Young's original popup PieCaken Bakeshop seems to be in between kitchens at present. Luckily, it still exists in the virtual realm, so you can order its offerings via Goldbelly. Of course, you could also always bake your own piecaken if you're feeling ambitious.
Taste of Home says you should start by baking a pecan pie, a pumpkin pie, and a spice cake, each in an 8-inch springform pan so they'll all be of even sizes. When your individual desserts are done and cooled, remove them from the pans and trim down the crusts and cake until you have three circular desserts, each about 1-1/2 inches high. Frost the pecan pie first with a 1/2 inch layer of cinnamon flavored buttercream frosting, then refrigerate for 30 minutes. Place the pumpkin pie on top, frost, and refrigerate for another 30 minutes. Add the cake layer to the pile, then once again frost and chill. Finally, frost the entire concoction with the remaining cinnamon buttercream (you may need to make a double batch, depending on your recipe), top it off with a few spoonful of apple pie filling, and decorate it in an appropriately autumnal way
Piecaken the perfect solution for those indecisive dinner guests who take forever choosing which dessert they want. No more "just a small sliver of each," just whack off a hunk of piecaken and everyone's happy (and really, really impressed).