A Kaleidoscope of Not-Cake (aka Pie)

Are you a cake person or a pie person?  Come on, you know which one you are.  Every living, breathing, eating human being out there knows where their loyalty lies.  And no -- you can't say both (or neither. . .)

I, for one, am 100, no 1000% in the cake camp.  I can't really say why -- but I would hazard that it has something to do with the texture. You really can't match that pillowy, springy, air-filled slice of delight.  Or maybe the frosting. . . you know? That perfect smear of silky-smooth, melt-in -your-mouth, sweet-and-salty personification of love.  I don't know; some things aren't made to be explained.  All I can say for sure is that cake is my one true love (as far as food goes anyways.)  Which makes it all the more shocking that one of my favorite (and quite possibly the favorite) desserts is a pie.

{Gasp} I know.  I can just see all my beloved cakes sinking (quite literally) with the betrayal.

Et tu, Brutus??? 

Yes, yes, I know.  But what can I say -- the heart wants what the heart wants. . .and every summer, my heart just screams for this particular pie. And every summer, I make it -- because although cake may be the personification of love, this pie really is the personification of summer.

Caramel Cream Cone Pie

(a riff on my Dulce de Leche Pie -- because I can't bear to repeat anything -- be it clothes, workouts, or desserts. Blame it on our consumerist culture.)

Waffle Cone Crust

Ingredients

• 7 oz box Waffle Cones
• 2 tbsp Brown Sugar
• 6 tbsp Butter (melted)

Cooking Directions

1. Pulse the waffle cones in a food processor with the brown sugar until they reach the consistency of a fine sand
2. Pour in the melted butter and pulse until combined
3. Press into a 9 inch tart pan
4. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees
5. Cool completely before unmolding

This is why my husband dreads the days that I bake btw.  See the crumbs? Yeah, I'm kind of a messy artist.  But there's beauty in chaos! Or at least that's what I try to tell him.

Cornflake Crunch (courtesy of Christina Tasi of Milk Bar)

Ingredients

• 2.5 cups Corn Flakes
• 1/4 cup Milk Powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
• 4 1/2 tbsp Butter (melted)

Cooking Directions

1. Crush up the cornflakes by hand until they are pebble sized.
2. Toss the cornflakes with the milk powder, sugar and salt
3. Pour in the melted butter and combine by hand until small clumps form
4. Spread evenly on a lined cookie sheet and bake at 275 degrees for 20 minutes
5. Cool completely

Prepare the Dulce de Leche cream filling, per the instructions here. Once the pie crust has been unmolded, fill with the the cream and top liberally with the cornflake crunch.

You could stop there.  In fact, maybe I should have stopped there.  (My husband certainly implored me to.)  But I always have to embellish my desserts a little.  You know, add a little decorative touch.  Maybe that's why I prefer cakes -- they're so much easier to polish up a bit.  Anyways, this one got the chocolate treatment with piped chocolate butterflies.  It sounds much harder than it it.  Basically, slide a piece of paper with a bunch of butterflies under a piece of parchment paper.  Using melted chocolate in a piping bag, trace the outline of the butterflies out, and fill in with different colors of melted chocolate.  Then swirl the outline into the filling a bit with a toothpick.  If you pipe each wing separately, you can prop the parchment on one side after the chocolate dries and connect the two wings with more chocolate.  This gives the butterfly a more realistic shape.  Less flat -- literally. After they dry, you just pile them onto the cake!

Do you know what a group of butterflies is called?  

A kaleidoscope. 

Isn't that beautiful? And just so, so fitting?! 

So there you have it -- a kaleidoscope of butterflies, 

descending just to make this lovely summertime pie just that much more perfect.