As seen on Pinterest: Making pie crust from cake mix

The challenge: to make a pie crust out of cake mix.

The recipe, first spotted by one of our editors on Pinterest, promised to be easy and “taste really good.”

And who can say no to pie made out of cake?

So I gave it a try.

Following the directions from HoosierHomemade.com — blogger Liz got the idea from a trip to the Duncan Hines headquarters — I set out to make a crust/filling combo sure to hit the spot: Turtle Cheesecake Pie.

Making the crust

The cake mix: Betty Crocker’s Super Moist Devil’s Food Flavour cake mix.

I added the egg, extra yolks and butter. At first, the dough was dry and crumbly.

“There’s not enough moisture!” I complained to my taste-tester/husband in the other room, who offered no support.

Once I turned out the dough on the dusted-with-cocoa-powder counter, however, everything started to come together nicely.

Note that this “dough” will stick to your hands. Wear rings at your own risk.

After letting the ball of cake/pie dough sit in the fridge for the obligatory 15 minutes, I divided the dough in half and started rolling it out.

Here’s what the recipe doesn’t tell you: dust your counter with cocoa powder again. (Use flour if you’re using a non-chocolate cake mix.) This dough is sticky! Even with a dusting, the centre of the dough seemed glued to the counter when I tried to lift it. Hello, holey dough disaster. Enter more powder. Eventually, I won the battle of the dough and managed to place it in the pan.

Speaking of pans….

The recipe doesn’t mention preparing the pan(s). The recipe makes two bottom crusts.

Since I like my pie slices to lift out of the pan, I prepped my pie plates like I would cake pans: I sprayed each pan with cooking spray — greasing them with butter or shortening would have worked, too — then lightly coated the pan with more cocoa powder.

Oops!

In my I-got-the-dough-off-the-counter pride, I forgot an important step: prick the bottom of the dough with a fork. A few minutes into baking, I remembered this and quickly pricked only one of the crusts to compare results.

As it turns out, if you don’t prick the dough, you’ll get a bubbled, uneven crust. Edible, but not pretty. You have been warned.

After 22 minutes in the oven — the recipe calls for 20 to 25 — the crusts were done. One was a little crispy around the edges, but I blame the oven, not the recipe, for that one.

The filling

One of the nicest things about the recipe is how it calls for the entire amount of a packaged product, not partial. If you buy the 8 oz cream cheese box and the 8 oz tub of Cool Whip, you’ll use it all.

I used a stand mixer, but an electric hand mixer would have done just fine.This was the easiest step by far.

The toppings

Instead of making my own caramel sauce out of caramels — who has time for all that unwrapping? — I went with store-bought butterscotch sauce. Since the recipe already uses so many not-exactly-from-scratch store-bought ingredients — I’m looking at you, cake mix and Cool Whip — I didn’t exactly feel guilty about it.

Sandra Lee would be proud.

The hot fudge sauce is a s-w-e-e-t one. The recipe didn’t specify what sort of “chocolate pieces” to add to the sweetened condensed milk, so I opted for semi-sweet chocolate chips. The leftovers will be great on ice cream. And/or everything.

Instead of using squeeze bottles to drizzle the sauces on the pie, I just used a spoon. Much simpler.

The pecans. I left them raw, but they would’ve been nice roasted, too.

The final “pie”

It was sweet. Very sweet. And rich. But not rich enough to keep us coming back for more, apparently, as the cake/pie has been slowly disappearing from the fridge.

The crust was firm, resembling more of a brownie than a cake, with a pretty great chocolate flavour, actually.

And it looked good. It would disappear quickly at a party — as long as your friends aren’t on diets and/or are from-scratch pie snobs.

The verdict

Can you make a pie crust out of cake mix? Yes.

Do you need to? Not really.

Actual pie crust is simpler that it looks — I made my first last summer and, despite my initial fears, everything turned out flaky and wonderful — and graham cracker crust is just as simple and tasty for more cheesecake-style desserts. Plus, it doesn’t require a rolling pin.

Would I make it again? Maybe. But probably with a different filling. Maybe…peanut butter? A simple cheesecake topped with raspberries?

I do have that second crust waiting for me….

HoosierHomemade.com’s Mini Pumpkin Mousse Pie with Meringue (made with yellow cake mix crusts) sounds pretty good, too.

Have you made pie crust out of cake mix? Will you give it a try?