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Chemical Apple Pie

In searching for the proper oven temperature for baked apples, I ran across this recipe (here) for “Chemical Apple Pie (No Apple Apple Pie.)” The ingredients are typical of many apple-baking recipes, except instead of apples, there’s “25 buttery round crackers.” The description says “If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that there were really apples in it. This is an old chemistry lab experiment to teach the limits of human sense.” 

Often when pie-d (pie-ified?), apples become almost unrecognizable, so maybe the only thing such an experiment would prove is that pie eaters look for the taste of butter and sugar, not for the bedrock on which they are slathered. Still, I had an insane urge to make a Chemical Apple Pie – insane not only because it’s essentially a Cracker Pie, but also there’s still pounds of apples in the larder, and to not use apples would defeat the purpose of baking. Besides, though Chemical Apple Pie is a great name for rock band or a collegian literary magazine, it’s not a particularly appetizing appellation for breakfast.

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