Very Very Strawberry Cake Pie

Verdict: FAILURE

Not Neighbor-worthy



I have no idea why I have been baking so much lately.  The truth is I'm not all that good at it and am also not really that into sweets.  Maybe it's summer and the desire to eat fruit?  Maybe it's 'cause I'm into challenges lately or just to satisfy my shallow ego by making something that looks great. 

Either way, this one was most surely chosen in the cruisiest of manners....I was on the prowl for something that aroused my senses and when I saw this one I knew I had to do it!

There was not much room to tweak this one as it stands pretty much on its own.  I did however up the nature of the dessert by focusing on the strawberry factor and revolving the whole recipe around that essence.

Unfortunately, this attempt was a most devastating FAIL.  Perhaps it was supposed to be mushy and wet on the inside like a pie, but I think the intent of this recipe was to be a mix of pie and cake and it was just not up to par.....so FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.

Ingredients:
1 box vanilla cake mix plus required ingredients strawberry cake mix (plus eggs 'n stuff)
3 cups or 1 lb fresh strawberries quartered
1/4 cup sugar
salt
flour for dusting
coarse sugar (you all know my rule about too many kinds of sugar in my cabinet-BS)
vanilla ice cream or whipped cream for serving (pick your own poison if you want, I'll skip)

Pre-heat oven to 350°

Spray a pie pan/plate with vegetable cooking spray (like PAM). Make your cake batter and pour it into your pan/plate until 3/4 full. Bake until almost set (rim is cooked but not the center too much--maybe like 20 minutes.) While the cake bakes, toss your strawberries, sugar and salt in a bowl and let it sit until you take your (almost) baked cake is taken out and put on a cooking rack. Up the temp of the oven to 450°

Unroll one of the pie crusts (on a flour dusted work surface) and cut into 1 1/4" strips. Unroll the other crust and cut 3 1" wide strips from the middle of it and press the ends of the strip together, end-to-end to make a long strip to be used as the rim of the dessert.

Drain your strawberry mixture and spoon it on top of your cake. Press 'em into the top of the cake to secure them in there (but not too hard-duh). Arrange half of the crust strips (not the long rim one) atop the berries, parallel to one another and spaced out by an inch (using the shorter strips toward the edges-again, duh). Fold them back and make a lattice formation with the remaining strips. If you can't figure it out at first, think of it as a mind game and play 'till you find the solution.

Wrap the long rim strip around the perimeter of your pan/plate, overlapping the lattice pieces. Trim any overhanging spots and crimp the dough all around the edges with your fingers. Sprinkle the lattice with sugar and throw pie into the oven for about 10 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Notes:
This was such an upsetting fail.  I was looking forward to making it for a week.  The bake times, I have to assume, were the cause of my FAILURE.  When the pie/cake was done, the batter of the cake was oozing out, upward through the strawberries and lattice.
Even as a FAILURE, this was pretty damn good looking. 
This was my first lattice which I am okay with.

Tweaks:
I substituted a strawberry mix for the prescribed vanilla to justify the "very very" claim.

Cheats:
Now that I know how to make cakes from scratch, I always feel that I'm cheating when I use a cake mix.

Got something that'll get a rise outta me or help redeem myself as a baker?  Send it my way.  theManicCheater@gmail.com