When it comes to creative and delicious "hybrid" foods, it's hard to think of a better example than the "turducken", a bold poultry compilation that first entered the national food scene in the late 1990s, when legendary NFL coach and sportscaster John Madden tried it in New Orleans and spread the word far and wide.
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A turducken, as its name suggests, is a deboned turkey that's then stuffed with a deboned chicken, which is in turn stuffed with a deboned duck. The three-birds-in-one efficiency of the turducken, along with its compelling savory flavors, turned it into a hit, and chefs quickly seized upon this culinary endeavor, seeking out new ways to blend several popular dishes into one single food item. Among the most successful turducken spinoffs comes in the form of a "piecaken", a dessert mashup for the ages.
What is a Piecaken?
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To put it in the simplest of terms, a piecaken is a pie baked inside a cake. This treat first emerged in 2015, when Chef Zac Young put it on the menu of the NYC restaurant that then employed him. The Piecaken was an immediate success, with Young receiving 400 cake orders within a matter of days. Inspired by the Piecaken's obvious appeal,Young decided to launch a business-PieCaken Bakeshop-totally devoted to his tasty creation.
Young's original Piecaken featured layers of pecan pie, pumpkin pie, spice cake, apple pie filling, cinnamon buttercream, and oat crumble.
Young set up a virtual store for PieCaken Bakeshop on Goldbelly, which provides the opportunity to order piecakens from anywhere in the United States. They consistently keep the Original PieCaken in stock, but if you'd prefer a different blend of flavors, then keep an eye out for their seasonal releases, which range from Red Velvet PieCaken to Strawberry Lemon PieCaken to Red, White, and Blueberry PieCaken and even to a Christmas-themed PieCaken loaded with pecan pie, eggnog cheesecake and red velvet cake layered together with amaretto buttercream and topped with sweet and tart cherry pie filling.
To order your own Young-approved PieCaken on Goldbelly, click below.
If you'd prefer to DIY your piecaken, we're happy to report that we were able to make our own OG piecaken Thanksgiving here at Wide Open Eats using a cake mix, grocery store pies, and canned pie filling. The holiday dessert is a snap to put together when almost everything is baked for you!
To make a successful piecaken at home, all you need is patience, a good cake recipe, and only a bit of time in the kitchen. Are you ready to conquer the piecaken once and for all? Let's start with these 10 piecaken recipes.
1. Piecaken: Lemon Meringue, Cherry Pie, Chocolate Cake, and Strawberry Cake
What happens when you combine a cherry pie, the base of a lemon meringue pie, chocolate cake, and strawberry cake? This masterpiece.
This piecaken stacks neatly and easily due to the fact that the pies nestle into cake pans and the batter is poured around the pans and into the in-between spaces, eliminating any concerns about blurred dessert boundaries.
Get the recipe from Food Network here.
2. Thanksgiving Piecaken: Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, Apple Upside-Down Cake
This holiday-perfect spin on the original PieCaken starts with a store-bought or homemade pecan pie and pumpkin pie. The cake part of this piecaken is an apple-upside down cake, with cinnamon buttercream adding an extra level of sweetness and spice.
If you wanted to go full apple, you could always replace the pumpkin pie with an apple pie, since apples and pecans are a natural and very appealing match.
Get the recipe here.
3. Apple Piecaken: Apple Crumble Inside Cheesecake
An apple crumble tucked inside a cheesecake? That's the idea behind the Apple Piecaken, and it's the stuff of autumn-girl dreams. The brown sugar in the pie crust perfectly highlights the tanginess of the apples, and the rich, silky cream cheese provides an ideal balance for both flavor dimensions.
Get the recipe here.
4. Cherpumple: Cherry Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie
Cherry, pumpkin, and apple: this triple decker is no joke! These fruit flavors might not seem like an immediate fit, but the bright, zingy taste of the cherries gives the classic apple-pumpkin profile an unexpected and vibrant shakeup.
Get the recipe here.
5. Chocolate Cherry Piecaken: Cherry Pie Inside Chocolate Cupcakes
Piecaken doesn't need to be a large-scale dessert- for a single-serving version of this treat, give piecaken cupcakes a try. This is a much more attainable concept if the idea of pulling out the electric mixer and the parchment paper for multiple cake layers is intimidating. This particular recipe embraces the luxurious flavor blend of cherry and chocolate, resulting in a handheld snack with plenty of stage presence.
Get this mini recipe here.
6. Raspberry Piecaken: Raspberry Pie in Flourless Dark Chocolate Cake
Like chocolate and cherry, chocolate and raspberry is a combination with massive popularity. When it comes to tucking a raspberry pie into an indulgent chocolate fudge cake, this hybrid represents an undeniable crowdpleaser. The best part about this particular piecaken is that it's totally easy to replicate at home.
Get the recipe here.
7. Key Lime Piecaken: Key Lime in Vanilla Cake
Key limes are in season in the winter, and these slightly-sweeter citrus fruits conjure up images of the balmy Florida Keys, even if you're enjoying them in a far-more-frigid climate. This piecaken turns a pie crust into an incredibly moist addition to a piecaken, and the lively Key lime custard blends beautifully with mellow vanilla cake.
Find the recipe here.
8. Vanilla Bean Peach Piecaken: Vanilla Cake with Peach Pie
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The union of vanilla and peach practically screams "summer", but the most brilliant thing about this particular piecaken is that it's entirely possible to make it in the dead of winter, with the help of frozen peaches.
Get the recipe here.
9. Chocolate Pecan Piecaken: Chocolate Cake with Pecan Pie
For a piecaken that pays culinary tribute to the Lone Star State, check out this chocolate-pecan creation. This recipe takes one of our favorite pies in Texas and bakes it into chocolatey Texas sheet cake, making for a show-stopping dessert that everyone will love.
Get the recipe here.
10. Chocolate Peanut Butter Piecaken: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie in a Rice Krispie Cake
The possibilities of a piecaken are limited only by a cook's creativity, and that even includes the specific desserts used in this mashup. Not in the mood for cake? Go ahead and swap it out for a giant Rice Krispie treat! This recipe uses a chocolate peanut butter pie as the other element of the "piecaken", and these flavors and textures are a total win for fans of peanut butter, chocolate, marshmallow, crunchiness, and imaginative sweet treats.
Get the recipe here.
