Apple Pie a la Death Cake

S - L - O - W. Drew's idea of making an apple pie for Thanksgiving is surely not mine! It started out alright. First we went to the library and checked out a cookbook with a good recipe. Then a week later he made a list of ingredients that he needed. We already had most of them. There was the important trip to Wegmans in the pouring down rain on Thanksgiving Eve, sandwiched between a few other events. I thought we were all set.

Thanksgiving Day came and went, and Drew didn't make a move toward cooking a pie. That's OK. Lots of time in the long weekend. Friday came, and Drew found so many activities to occupy his time. Saturday found us decorating the school, and running a few errands. Then the pull of playing with friends entered the picture. Still, I didn't mention it. Baking an apple pie would tie up a lot of my own time since Drew had never done it before.

Late Saturday night, Drew decided to make the crust, and keep it in the fridge overnight. OK, that was a good idea. Drew puttered around in the kitchen while I sat in the living room knitting and waiting for him to call me. I assumed he was getting the ingredients nicely lined up. He appeared in the dining room, fussing that it just wasn't right.

He had mixed everything together, and he had crumbs in his hands. Something was definitely wrong. I read through the list, and finally arrived at the butter part. "Are you sure you put in enough butter," I asked.

"YES," he grumbles. "Just what it called for." I am pretty sure he does not have enough butter in the crumbly mix.

"So you put in two whole sticks of butter," I press.

"What? No. That's not what it says. Let me see that." He reads the instructions again, mutters a bit, then admits he only put in a few tablespoons. And he doubled the recipe. Back to the drawing board! I leave him in the kitchen to fix it up, and go back to knitting. After a few minutes, I realize he is using the food processor! Shades of toughness. THAT won't work. I try to delicately suggest that pie dough is a fussy creature requiring gentle manual manipulation so as not to excite the elastin in the wheat. Perhaps he should turn the processor off before the darn crust turns to concrete.

He does so, and the dough is wound tightly around the beater blades. He coaxes it out onto plastic wrap. My heart sinks again. I bite my tongue. Maybe it will work as good as wax paper. I leave that one alone. Drew decides not to cook the crust tonight. I shake my head and inform him that you don't cook the crust for apple pie separately from the filling. That process is only for pie fillings you don't cook. I am amazed at how little he knows about this whole procedure! The dough goes in the cool fridge and we retreat to separate neutral corners for the evening.

Sunday was nearly over when suddenly I realized that Drew was in the kitchen puttering around. He has peeled the apples and mixed the seasonings (seems a bit cinnamony to me, but I resist the temptation to question his recipe following skills). He works at rolling out the crust, asking questions about how you make that darn stuff come out round, whether he should cut off the excess, surprised that you fold it up and pinch it into a juice holding edge. "So *that's* how it works. Neat-o!"

He pops it in the oven and begins marking time. One hour, and we are both anticipating a delicious smell, and irresistible sweet gooey apple delight. But an hour ticks by and I can barely smell it. I peek in the oven. It looks right. Drew takes it out of the oven, asking me if I think its done. I suggest he cut into the top and see if the insides are boiling. He slices into it. I remind him that you can't cut a piece out until it cools sufficiently to gel up a bit. Otherwise the innerds just run all over and you don't get a decent piece intact.

But wait! Something is wrong here. There is no juice, no steamy smell, no goo. Only solid brown insides. That's right. Brown. And SOLID. This can't be right. I question Drew about what on earth he had put in there. You can't even see a single apple slice. He gets a bit testy. "Just what the recipe called for. A cup of sugar, cinnamon and flour."

What? No, no. You would never use an entire cup of cinnamon (I am just beginning to understand why he told me we were going to need more cinnamon and that we barely had enough!). I read the ingredients. 1 cup and some sprinkles of sugar. 3 and a half teaspoons of cinnamon, same for flour. Drew grabs the book and points to the text beneath. Add 1 cup of sugar, cinnamon and flour. He had assumed it meant 1 cup of each. Good grief! What do you do with 2 solid pies that each have a whole cup of cinnamon in them?

Drew knew just what to do with them. He ate a piece, and cut one for me. I gingerly nibbled here and there to be polite. But Drew thought it was grand! He ate a second piece. OK, but I am not tempting fate. Sorry.

The next morning, Drew packaged up four individual slices and took the remains of one pie with him in the carpool. He offered a piece to each student as they entered the car.

"What's this?" each one asks.

"Apple death cake," Drew replies.

They taste it, they like it, they gobble it down. It's a hit! What do you know? Sometimes its best not to have any preconceived ideas of what something should be. You never know when a disaster might turn out to be a discovery.