Stop Trying To Reconcile Pie And Cake

I’m not saying we have to be sworn enemies. But as yet another cake-pie hybrid lands in our inbox, I feel it’s my duty to inform all you dessert Utopians that…it’s the League of Nations of desserts.

You’ve heard, no doubt, of the “Pumpple cake” — a Frankenstein’s monster of stunt cookery along the lines of the Turducken or the Fiji Mermaid. It’s pies encased in cake. Why? Because they can. We all get the rationale: end the age-old war between humble pie and festive cake with one peacemaker of a dessert. Because more’s better, right? Here’s how MSNBC describes one iteration:

The Flying Monkey, located in Philadelphia’s famous Reading Terminal Market, bakes this dessert-lover’s fantasy from scratch over the course of two days. It starts with the pies, which it par-bakes. The half-cooked pumpkin pie is dipped into chocolate cake batter and baked. The apple pie and vanilla cake get the same treatment and are baked on top of the chocolate cake. Its massive size means that it spends hours in the oven. Homemade buttercream is then – literally – the icing on the entire cake.

This grotesque party-trick weighs in at 15 pounds and a foot tall. And it’s flying off the shelves. Do what you want, but I’ll be over here in the corner muttering. Because the fact is, the reality not only sounds like a dermatological condition, its unrelated strata are an exercise in wretched excess. It’s a dessert by committee, the sort of thing that might seem great in a pastry politician’s mind but in fact, after that first exploratory bite, surely lies uneaten by all but the least discriminating stoner. Call me sour, but after admiring the concoction’s technical expertise, I’d run screaming from the table — or just end up sullenly eating around the cake. But then, I’m Team Pie.