Delicious two-layer bluple. Leftover cake batter is also put to good use in the background.

We decided to have a stuffed Thanksgiving: a turducken, a cherpumple, stuffed rolls, and twice-baked potatoes. There was a problem with that though – there are only two of us. A cherpumple, fully prepared, involves these ingredients:

-1 8″ frozen pumpkin pie
- 1 box spice cake mix
- 1 8″ frozen apple pie
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 1 8″ frozen cherry pie
- 1 box white cake mix
- eggs and oil according to the cake mix
- 3 tall tubs of cream-cheese frosting

With the help of calorie-count.com, we determined that a complete cherpumple is somewhere around 18000-20000 calories.  Split between two people, with even a generous 1/16-of-a-cake slice per serving (1125 calories!), this would take us a couple of weeks to get through.

So we sought to create a contradiction: a miniature cherpumple.  Enjoy the indulgence of pie-within-cake action while simultaneously creating (relatively) reasonable proportions.

There are really two problems to address: scope and physical size.  To address scope, we cut the number of layers from 3 to 2.  Down to 12000 calories already!  But that’s not far enough.

To address physical size, we changed two key components.

1. Instead of using 8″ pies, we crafted our pies in 2″ tart pans.  Bed Bath & Beyond sells these for about $1.50 each.  You could probably also use petit four molds, if you had some around.
2. Instead of using 9″ cake rounds, we baked each cake layer in a 6-oz ramekin.

Flavor-wise, we decided to bake a bluple – blueberry pie in a white cake layer, apple pie in spice cake layer, all in a two-layer frosted cake.  It turned out great!  And between two people, it can easily be eaten in a day or two.

Step 1a) Prepare pies in very small tart pans.

Step 1b) Yes, they really are tiny pies. Fill with filling of choice.

Step 1c) Tiny pie tops and everything!

Step 2a) Place pie in cake batter in ramekin. Bake.

Step 2b) Carve as needed to make an appropriate cake-layer shape.

Step 3) Assemble and enjoy!

You see, tomatoes lose flavor within a couple of minutes of being picked from the vine if they’re fully red and ripe, and they continue to lose flavor as more time passes.  Tomatoes you get from the supermarket thus, by definition, do not taste as good as they once did.  In fact, you can remove any remaining flavor yourself by refrigerating them – this will destroy the remaining deliciousness that is a fresh tomato.

Of course, we didn’t do that.  The photo below shows our second harvest (one basil plant, one cherry tomato bush, and one heirloom-type tomato bush).  Super easy to grow and super delicious, whether they’ll be eaten fresh or made into a delicious pasta sauce (as these will be momentarily).

Mmm... tomato-basil in its purest form.

You see, when you buy meat from the farmer, it’s only really economical for them to sell it to you in large quantities – for example, 1/8 cow (one of the smallest units of beef) is about 55 pounds.  Some places only sell units as small as 1/4 or 1/2 cows.  So you really need a dedicated freezer to house all the meat once you buy it.

Now that we’re moving to a real house in Virginia Beach, we have room for a chest freezer, which means 1/4 cow won’t be hard to store.  So I went to eatwild.com (highly recommended) to find the closest pasture, only to find a huge list without any easy way to figure out where in the state they were actually located and what they had.  Thus, I spent half an hour producing the following…

BEHOLD!  A Google custom map displaying all locations to buy pastured meat in Virginia!

By the look of it, the best places for us in Virginia Beach will be Holly Grove Farm (beef and raw milk) and Full Quiver Farm (chicken, turkey, eggs, beef and pork).  Lovers Retreat Farm (beef, goat cheese, duck eggs, goose eggs, guinea eggs) is a little further, but I bet will be worth it.  There are a few places that have lamb as well, but it looks like they’ll be a longer drive…