Mock Apple Pie

Mock Apple Pie
Dorcas Annette Walker

All kinds of pranks are played on April Fool’s Day. My father was one of the best for catching us kids off guard. I carried his legacy over to my family and enjoy playing jokes on April 1st. It is a great way to get back at my husband, who is known for his jokes. I made sure that Dana wasn’t driving down the road the other year before announcing that I was a pregnant grandma, but I really scared my husband and kids last year when I called them and told them that I had fallen. Dana said he nearly had a heart attack and made me promise never to do that again. So this year I am going to be good, uh… at least try and make an effort not to alarm my family too much. Instead I plan to serve them my Mock Apple Pie.

Most believe that April Fool’s Day or All Fool’s Day started around 1582 in France with the reform of the calendar under Charles IX. Since communication traveled slowly it became the custom to play pranks. Even the Romans had a festival in early spring with masquerades. Today Scotland devotes April Fool’s Day to spoofs involving the buttocks, England, Australia, and New Zealand only plays jokes before noon, the Flemish tradition is for children to lock out their teachers or parents, in Portugal people throw flour at friends, the French try to attach a paper fish unnoticed to a victim’s back, and in India they play jokes and smear colors on each other.

Because there are so many practical jokes on April Fool’s Day people have doubted real news releases. In 1946 an earthquake tsunami killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were a prank, the merger of Square and its rival company Enix in 2003 wasn’t believed, nor was Gmail’s launch in 2004, the announcement of the Mario & Sonic Olympic Games a couple days before April 1st was thought to be a joke, and in 2007 a ball python kept in an engineer’s cubicle at Google’s New York City office escaped… you guessed it, on April Fool’s Day. Another year there was a serious overload to a zoo’s switchboard after people began obeying hoax messages to call fictitious people such as Mr. C. Lion and Mr. L. E. Fant. So if you plan on playing tricks on April Fool’s Day just be sure and let the person know that it is indeed a joke.

The Mock Apple Pie is a perfect way to celebrate April 1st. With its flaky pastry and apple-tasting filling no one will believe that they aren’t eating a genuine apple pie. Preparation time for my Mock Apple Pie (not counting baking and cooling) is about twenty-five minutes and this recipe makes one deep-dish apple pie.

Mock Apple Pie

9 inch pie crust for top and bottom
2 c water
2 c sugar
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 tb lemon juice
1 pkg of Ritz crackers
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tb margarine

Bring water, sugar, and cream of tartar to a boil in a small saucepan, let simmer for fifteen minutes, take off the heat, and add lemon juice. Crumble the crackers and put in the bottom of the pie crust. Sprinkle on cinnamon. Pour the syrup over the crackers and dot with margarine. Layer on the top crust, seal, and sprinkle with sugar & cinnamon. Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350º until golden brown. Cool completely before serving!

Weekly tip: When shaking on spices to get a more even dusting hold the spice about a foot above the food!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcaswalker@twlakes.net. For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com