I mentioned in the post that the Ricetta Maiorchino I made the other night was on the dry side. It was fine a few hours after coming out of the oven, but yesterday morning, it was Gobi Desert Dry.

It still had a good flavor, but it was seriously suck-the-moisture-out-of-your-mouth dry.

Being my mother’s son, there was no way I was going to just throw it out – it was a dessert, after all! Time to get creative. I started thinking of what one can do with cake crumbs… when I worked at the Donut Center years ago, we ground up stale donuts for our bear claws and other danish pastries – but I wasn’t about to make danish. Trifle, tiramisu, cobbler with a cake-crumb topping… more ambitious than I was feeling. As I was blankly staring into the cupboard, I saw a can of pumpkin – and a pie was born!

If you can make a crust out of cookie crumbs, you can make a crust out of cake crumbs, says I!

I took some of the cake and placed it in the food processor and when it was nice and crumbly, added some melted butter. Pressed it into the pie plate and added a basic pumpkin filling.

Into the oven.

It came out great! The crust held together and was solid but soft – a nice contrast to a traditional pie. And it had a great flavor.

My you-never-know-when-it’s-going-to-hit frugality was a success. It’s always fun to see when money is no object but $1.29 is too much to pay for something. I offer no explanations or excuses – it just is when it is.

And this is one of those times I’m glad it was.