Let's go Cherpumple-ing

Do you ever find yourself invited to a holiday party and you just don't know what to bring. Next time, consider the (not-so) humble Cherpumple! What's a Cherpumple you say... Well, it's pretty much the mongoloid child of the baking world. 3 pies are baked inside three cakes, which are then layered on top of each other. It's an abomination, in all honesty. It sounded ungodly, but some of my co-workers and I just really wanted to see this bad-boy in real life. And so we baked.

And baked.

And baked.

Cherpumple is not as easy, or as hard, as they make it sound, and so I will share with you our Cherpumple wisdom.

To start with, you take 3 store-bought pies (homemade if you're feeling fancy), and 3 boxed cakes. Mix the cake normally.

We're still excited here.

 You then combine the pies and the cake in a 9" spring form pan. Here's Word of Wisdom #1: Put some cake mix in the pan first, and then lay the pie in that. This keeps the bottom of the pie from dropping out of the bottom when you take it out.

Trust me

Also, Word of Wisdom #2: If your pie has a solid covering (like apple), poke a bunch of holes in the top crust. This will fill it with cake (yum) and keep it more structurally stable.

Mutilated pie

Most Cherpumple directions then say to bake according to box directions. This is a blatant lie. We put ours in for 25 minutes, like the box said, and checked back every 15 minutes after that. It took 2 hours total. That's a lot of 15 minute breaks. Word of Wisdom #3: Cover the entire pan with tin foil, tent-like. This traps the heat a little better and helps the top to cook. We didn't do this and pulled ours out, thinking it was done. It was not. It was raw on top.

Gross

I try not to give friends salmonella. So, two hours later, they were finally done.

Let the cakes cool completely. We put ours on wire racks to help it out. Taking the cakes out was actually very easy. You just remove the sides of the pan, put a cutting board on top, and flip the whole thing. I then flipped mine again onto the rack to cool some more. It's a lot of flipping, but it's worth it. They are also ridiculous.

That's three and a half pounds.

We then just made some basic butter cream frosting and stacked the cakes.

That's a foot of cake

A layer of icing on the outside...

And an absolute hailstorm of sprinkles later...

And it was done. Total time: Probably close to 6 hours. Literally. Cherpumple is a 2-day operation.

Cherpumple also takes two people to transport. You have to sit in the car and have someone hand it in to you. It weighs about 15 pounds. It's a big cake.

Cutting it takes a big knife. But it's like a Geology lesson in there.

All-in-all, Cherpumple was worth it. Until halfway through a slice when I wanted to cry, or throw up.

Some baked goods were meant to be enjoyed in small doses.

I wish you all the best of luck on your Cherpumple adventures! Feel free to share your tips and tricks (and photos!) with the rest of us! Any unusual pie/cake combinations out there?

Happy Monday everyone!
~Sarah