Ever find yourself in a situation where you are torn between eating or baking a pie or cake.? Like you want a flakey, buttery pie, with a gooey center, but you also are craving a delicious, moist, fluffy cake? Well it may not be the answer to world peace, but we have certainly solved the cake or pie conundrum.
You see, we simply baked a pie, then nestled it inside of a cake. On the outside this just looks like your run of the mill, homemade cake, but once you cut into it, you quickly realize there is a delicious and expected hidden surprise. Inside of this perfect vegan chocolate cake, is an even more perfect chocolate bourbon pecan pie! Don’t pass out! I know how amazing this is! I truly do!
Once upon a time when we were not vegan, and watched a lot of Food Network late at night, my husband and I saw a guy dropping pies into all kinds of cakes. MULTI TIERED PIE FILLED CAKES. Y’all, I don’t have that kind of time on my hands but I can 100% pull off one single layer of pie cake. After watching this magic go down on TV we went right to the kitchen and baked our first pie cake for a pot luck for my husband’s work. It was a hit!
Then like most things, I forgot all about it. Until the other day when I remembered, like 10 years later, but thank the good lord I did. The first time we just bought a pecan pie from the grocery store. Sadly vegan pies are not a dime dozen at most local grocery stores, so our amazing pie baking daughter baked up a delicious mini chocolate bourbon pecan pie. It is seriously one of the best things ever all by itself, but its mind blowing inside of my favorite chocolate cake recipe, iced with vegan vanilla bourbon butter cream!!
I guarantee if you roll into a holiday party, or any party for that matter with this cake, you will be everyone’s favorite person, at least for the day!! Now you never have to toil over whether to bake a cake or pie, because now, you can just bake them both all rolled into one.
Lets all take a moment to reflect on this reality, and to give a big round of applause to whoever that dude was on the Food network that originally created the amazing madness! And get ready for like a million hugs and high fives once everyone realized there is a pie in that cake!
INGREDIENTS:
You will need an 8 inch diameter, deep cake pan, and a 6 inch pie pan
CHOCOLATE BOURBON PECAN PIE:
1 store bought vegan pie dough
1 1/4 cups chopped pecans
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon dark cocoa powder
2 tablespoons bourbon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
CHOCOLATE CAKE:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups whipped aquafaba (chickpea liquid that has been whipped with cream of tarter resembling whipped egg whites)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup neutral oil (I use Grape seed oil)
1 cup brewed coffee
1 cup plant based milk (I like oat milk for baking) plus 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
BOURBON BUTTERCREAM:
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup vegan shortening
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons bourbon
3ish cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Allow pie dough to come to room temperature. Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and place inside the pie pan. Cut off the excess dough. You don’t need the crust to be pretty since it’s just going into a cake. Pop the pie crust into the oven and let bake.for about 10 minutes. * not all pie dough is vegan. You just have to read the ingredients. I have found several brands that are. You can also buy a frozen pie crust and just let it thaw then remove it from its pan. Sometimes I have more luck finding vegan crust in the freezer section than the refrigerator section.
In a large sauce pan, heat oil over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cocoa and cook for about 2 minutes, whisking the whole time. Continue whisking while adding the maple syrup, sugar, water, and salt. Cook until the sugar has dissolved. Bring mixture to a boil then lower the heat to low, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in pecans, vanilla, and bourbon.
Pour mixture into the crust. You can add extra pecans around the edge it you like.
Bake the pie for 45 - 55 minutes. If the edge seems to be getting too brown, cover the edge with aluminum foil for the remainder of the bake time.
Place the pie on a wire cooling rack and allow it to cool completely. Once the pie is totally cool, place a plate over the top of the pie and flip it over. The pie should come out onto the plate. Put another plate on the bottom of the pie and flip again. Now you should have the pie upright on a plate!
To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, or another large bowl if using a hand mixer, add the milk, oil, brewed coffee, and vanilla. Slowly pour in the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Once the batter is all mixed up, slowly fold in the whipped aquafaba using a rubber spatula, just until incorporated. Do not over mix, this deflates the aquafaba, resulting in a less fluffy cake.
Grease and lightly flour one 8 inch cake pan that is rather deep. It needs to be deep enough to hold all of the cake batter.
Pour about 1/3 of the batter into the bottom of the pan, then nestle the pie carefully into the center of the cake batter. Pour the remaining batter over the top.
Place the pan on the top rack of your oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a tooth pick comes out clean when poked into the cake. You might have to poke away from the center a bit because the pie is gooey and will trick you into thinking the cake is not done!
Once cake is finished baking, place it on a cooling rack to cool completely before turning over onto a serving plate or cake board and frosting.
To prepare the frosting, beat the butter, and shortening together in a stand mixer, or in a large bowl, using your electric hand mixer. Once the mixture is completely creamy, beat in the vanilla and bourbon. Slowly begin to beat in the powdered sugar, and mix until there are no more lumps. If the frosting seems too thick, you can add a few more drops of bourbon to thin it back out. Nobody is gonna be mad about it.
Cover the cake with the frosting and decorate with some pecan halves if you like. Slice pie cake to serve. Store leftovers in the fridge or at room temperature in an airtight container.
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