Labour intensive desserts

I love cooking and baking and if a lot of effort is required to make a certain item but the payoff is good, then I'll make it again. Only once have I made something that required so much effort and the end result was a mere meh, that I have not made it again. It was an apple gateau (cake) made of only apples, yes just apples, well a few other things for flavouring, but no flour, eggs, butter nothing traditional for cake baking. In retrospect I'm not sure why I thought it would be absolutely spectacular, but it seemed quite unique and I had more time on my hands back then. I had to peel and core 6 1/2 pounds, yes that's correct not 6 1/2 apples, but POUNDS of apples and then slice them thinly (1/8 inch thick) with my mandoline. Thank goodness I didn't have to do it by hand, the slicing that is, as I did have to peel them by hand as I didn't have one of those handy apple peelers and corers.

After slicing them, I rubbed 6 large sugar cubes over 2 oranges, unpeeled, to essentially create orange flavoured sugar and then crush them with a rolling pin. In a tall souffle dish, with a high parchment paper collar, I then started the process of layering the apples, in a floral pattern and interlocking them and sprinkling the sugar after a few layers. I repeated until all 6 1/2 pounds of apples were layered. Then, I placed a circle of parchment to fit the top over the layered apples and placed a few plates on top to weigh it all down. This was then placed in an oven set at 175F and baked for 12 to 14 hours. I'll just let you have a moment and let that sink in.... 12- 14 freaking hours!!! The entire time I'm making this cake, I'm thinking it better be damn tasty! When I was done, and the cake came out of the dish, I have to admit it looked rather pretty and impressive. I took a bite and it tasted like.... cooked apples, layered thinly with a bit of orange flavoured sugar. Huh... who would have thought? DUH!! Granted I probably should have made the caramel salt butter sauce that is suggested to be served with it, but quite frankly, after spending all this time making the gateau I didn't feel like doing anything more. I expected it to somehow melt miraculously in my mouth and taste absolutely heavenly, afterall it had been in the oven for over 12 hours! Now you're probably wondering who inspired me to make this crazy cake... Anne Willan, a French chef, and this cake is featured on the front of her cookbook. I'm such a sucker for photos!

So, why am I mentioning this baking tale? Because I have now encountered my second item that I will likely never attempt again. Yes, the one you've all been waiting for, the concord grape pie.

I used my trusted and favourite flaky pie crust recipe, which never fails me. Easy enough. The filling however required 3 pounds of concord grapes, which as I mentioned previously, I decided to use coronation grapes as a substitution. Concord grapes are usually seeded, luckily for me, the coronation grapes I bought were seedless. The recipe calls for the grapes to be seeded if they are concords, so that would usually mean one less step. But no, as I needed to heat the pulp mixture to melt the butter and sugar into it, so I sat there squeezing out 3 pounds of coronation grapes and separating the pulp from the skins, reserving both. A very sticky and squirty job but after 30-45 minutes later it was done. Then I heated the pulp and thankfully did not have to strain the mixture to get the seeds out. I added a significantly less amount of sugar than required as I do with all my baking. The recipe called for 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar and I put in 1/2 cup in total. Then added the lemon juice and butter and mixed it all up. Then, I added the skins back into the pulp mixture and the requisite tapioca powder for gelling. Cooled it and then put it in the pie crust, topped it, cut the vent holes, glazed it, sugared and into the oven it went. Significantly less work than the apple gateau, but still a lot more work than making a standard apple, strawberry rhubarb or even lemon meringue pie. 55 minutes in the oven at 425F (which by the way is way too hot or I should have covered it at one point because the top of the pie started to burn, especially since it said to sprinkle sugar on the top (as shown in the picture here). We had to wait until the next morning to try the pie as it looked fairly soupy still. I cut into the pie the next morning and it looked good. Very purple and grapey and smelled like grapes. Tastewise, it was very much like having a glass of Welch's grape juice with a bit more pulp and skins. It had a cloying kind of sweetness to me, especially in the finish but it was also tart. It was really a rather odd sort of sensation and taste in my mouth. PB seemed to like it, but then again, he's not very discerning when it comes to my baking (although he thought the apple crisp I made last week was far too sweet) and will pretty much eat anything, especially in pie form. He agreed though that I was crazy for all the work I put into it. I think he'd much rather have is favourite lemon meringue over the concord or pseudo concord grape pie. Sadly now, PB had to go to work, and I have to figure out how to freeze the other half of this pie do he can eat it when he gets back.