Its a pie baked inside a cake.  I've made three now.  Learned a bit.  They're a novelty but people find them interesting.  I did a chocolate cherry (choc cake, cherry pie, choc icing) and caramel apple (apple pie, caramel cake, caramel icing.)

This sounds AWESOME!!!!

It's like the dessert version of turduckin lol. I've never heard of piecakin before. I'd love to see pics of them if you have any!!! How do they taste?

I stumbled upon the idea in an online search quite some time ago and was intrigued by it. I am always looking to try out new recipes especially those that are a break from the norm. This one qualified & my co-workers were willing test subjects for my experiment.  I thought I had posted it but in looking through my profile, I had not.  I actually tried it out back in the summer and called mine a "pake".

I went with cherry pie & chocolate cake. As I don’t like making pies & there is a pie outlet handy to me I purchased my pie already baked. You can’t beat an 8" pie for $2.25!

I lined the bottom of a 10" cake pan with parchment & also put parchment around the edge as my pan was only 2" tall & I was worried the cake might rise & spill over the pan. I prepared my favorite chocolate cake recipe (I can share if you are interested) & covered the bottom of the pan with it. I removed the pie from the foil pan & placed it right side up over the batter. Then I poured the remaining batter over the pie. I baked it at 325F for about 70 minutes. I cooled it on a wire rack a bit longer than I normally would for a regular cake. After removing it from the pan & while it was still a bit warm I poured semisweet chocolate ganache over the top allowing it to drip over the sides a bit. The finishing touch were some dark chocolate curls (that I forgot I had, hence the bit of white).

The verdict…… rave reviews! It didn’t take long at all to disappear. It was very tasty & definitely something I would make again! Most of the people I work with are not bakers but certainly enjoy baked goods & they thought the combination was perfect. They were also impressed by a pie inside a cake.

Hope you find this useful & feel free to message me if you have any questions :-)

(Please excuse the quality of the pictures as I just used my tablet to take them)

That is so awesome!!! What a great combination and it looks like it would taste incredible!  Did you like how it tasted or does the pie shell get soft or mushy? 

geez that cherry chocolate is seriously/deleriously temptational -- i'd so add almond flavor somewhere -- chocolate/cherry/almond is one of my top favorites -- nice work, kstevens

and what have you learned, leah?

Camomama5, I was pleasantly surprised that the pie shell did not get soft.  It was one of my initial concerns.  As I said, it was very tasty and I would make it again.  It's really quite simple to make but people are "wowed" by the fact that there is a pie inside a cake.

K8memphis, I agree that almond and cherry go really well together but in all honesty I don't think it needs it in this case.  To each their own though :-)

1.  I put the baked pie into the cake batter/pan upside down.  As with other cakes, i want to use the flat bottom of the cake as the top for icing.  An iced, domed cake is my personal pet peeve.

2.  Use a cake pan fairly close to the size of the pie.  My pie pans are 8 3/4 inches.  The first time I used a 12 inch cake pan, and that was too big.  The second time I used an 11" and that was better.  A 10" would probably be even better.  If there's too much cake batter, the thing just never bakes properly without the edges getting overdone..

leah, thank you for that! saves me a few degrees on the run up the learning curve -- 

i'm in the valley of decision though i had a request for the cake size Oreo cookie which is so straight forward  -- 2 rich fudgey layers filled with butter & cream vanilla bean paste american buttercream but i gave my Oreo pan away so for our christmas meal i was gonna make it into a snowflake cake instead...

now this idea, hmmm decisions decisions

shoot, i don't even have my gingerbread started...

or my house cleaned 

I've never heard of this but I will have to run it by my test subjects to see if it is something they would be interested in trying. Thanks for sharing!

Hi everyone!  I'm breathing a sigh of contentment that I can actually post and communicate with my CC buddies again. 

The TV show Drop Dead Diva featured "pakes" when the ditzy blond, Stacey, when to court over who invented the pake.   The link below has the recipe from the show.

http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/drop-dead-diva/blog/make-your-own-pake  

I hope you are all well and thriving despite forum withdrawal!   I'm heading into the kitchen to try two new recipes I found online:  Cream cheese filled  banana bread by Averie Cooks  http://www.averiecooks.com/2014/08/cream-cheese-filled-pumpkin-bread.html  

and Strawberry Nut Bread (with toasted, sugared pecan bits) by  Jamie Tarence, www.familysavvy.com               

I have four pre-baked and frozen Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cakes and Mock Shack Buttercream ready for a family get-together on the 20th.   Whew.....

LOVE YOU GUYS!

leah_s   You have peaked my interest !!  lol  Did you make the cakes 2 layers  ?  Did you ice the cake and decorate ?  I really want to give this a try.  I'm thinking chocolate cherry, but I would like to try covering it fully in icing and decorating for Christmas.  Tell me more...

I have one more question... Are the pies frozen when you place them in the cake batter ?  I know when I put candies in my cupcakes I always freeze them first.  Do I need to do this with the pies?

Pies are definitely not frozen.  The cake would take forever to  bake with a big block of cold pie in the middle!  Pies need to be double crust, at least for the way I do it, since I turn them upside down.

One 2" tier, iced.

Hi Everybody!   I got all excited that I could actually "talk" to my cake forum buddies again and typed a big ol' post and......

it's being held pending moderator approval.

At some point, you just have to laugh!

ljdills, I know you posed your questions to leah who started this thread & I don't mean to highjack it, but I thought I'd offer answers to your questions based on my experience.  

I've included all the details above on how I did mine.  I used ganache to cover the cake as I thought icing would be too sweet for it.  I guess it all depends on what you like.  I don't see any reason why it couldn't be iced & decorated like a regular cake.

The pie was not frozen.  I think if it were that the baking time of the cake would be affected.  

As you can see in my second picture, the pie sinks to the bottom & there is very little cake under it.  I think it would work well to make a second cake for under it but the feedback from those who ate mine was that a second layer of cake would be too much, that as a single layer it was just right.

I have actually seen ones that are three layers, each layer a different flavor cake with a different kind of pie inside.  I haven't ventured down that road yet.

Leah, I'd like to hear more on what you have tried.  Have you iced yours?  Did you do two layers?  

Thank you leah_s and kstevens for all of your help.  I am trying the chocolate / cherry combination today.  I am following kstevens advice and pouring ganache over the top and decorating with chocolate covered cherries.  I will let ya'll know how it goes.  If all goes well, I will be trying the caramel / apple version later this week.  Wish me luck !  Off to bake !

Good luck with it ljdills.  The chocolate covered cherries on top should be a nice addition :-)

Check out this one, it's the one I mentioned seeing online that is three layers of cake with a pie inside each layer:

http://www.foodbeast.com/news/the-pumpecapple-piecake-fuses-popular-desserts-into-a-frakencake-of-deliciousness/