Christmas is not usually a stressful time for me because I’m Jewish and have just gotten over hosting 25-35 people at Thanksgiving. But this year was different.
My mother-in-law allowed me to bring dessert. Homemade dessert. As in my mother’s cheesecake recipe (which I’ve made before) and an apple pie (which I haven’t).
So on Tuesday night this week, I made my cheesecake and started my pie crust. I followed my aunt’s directions to a tee, but still wasn’t sure how the apple pie would turn out. In the end, they weren’t pretty, but did the job, I guess.
Bringing these desserts to my mother-in-law’s Christmas dinner reminded me of another time when I brought a pie to my former in-laws in central China. What seemed like a good idea at the time turned out to be a minor disaster.
Back then my (then) husband insisted we always fly to Wuhan (the closest city to his hometown) via Shenzhen. This entailed taking a train from our home in Hong Kong to the Chinese border city of Shenzhen, going through passport control and clearing customs, changing to a bus that would take us to the airport, and flying to Wuhan.
One November my (then) husband was in China for a spell of 3-4 months while he renewed his passport and Hong Kong visa. I planned a trip to visit him at his parents’ place in Hubei province so we could celebrate his birthday together. For a treat, I planned to bring a cake. A Hong Kong birthday cake. They look something like this:
But on second thought, I couldn’t imagine schlepping it on the train, clearing customs, boarding that bus, and then flying with it. The cake was too delicate for that. So a coworker and I headed over to the cake shop of the old Metropole Hotel in Kowloon.

There I chose a beautiful pecan pie. Sturdy, presentable, and made from nuts (popular in China), this pie would be easy to transport and a hit with my Chinese family.
When it came time to eat the pie, my three sisters-in-law took one bite and set their plates down. My father-in-law ate half his piece, but I could tell it was a chore to accomplish that much. Then I took a bite after I finished cutting all the pieces, and understood why they didn’t eat more.
It was laced with rum.
While I was used to rum in desserts, my Chinese family wasn’t. I was mortified that I didn’t know about the rum, but also–if I’m to be honest–a little unhappy that I’d gone to all that effort for what amounted to a big waste.
So this Christmas I couldn’t worry too much about my apple pie and cheese cake. While they didn’t look very pretty, at least I knew what was in them!
That apple pie looks yummie! That sounds like a long trip for a cake. I tried a simple Austrian Christmas dinner this year – but my in-laws didn’t really dare to eat it, not because there was something wrong with it, but because they aren’t used to international food. My MIL tried a bit and did eat some of that sauerkraut, but my FIL didn’t even try. The next day my husband helped me finish it.
Thank you so much! I had similar experiences cooking for my Chinese family. Sometimes they would add potato chips to Italian food I cooked because they thought it needed more texture. But they did love baked goods, like cookies and cake, even though they didn’t normally eat sweet things in China!
We shouldn’t have the saying,”As American as apple pie.” It gives people the impression that all Americans know how to bake a pie. At international bazaars, the American contingent is often expected to bring dozens and dozens of pies. Fortunately my pies used to turn out good. (I don’t bake much any more.)
Yeah, pie making is definitely an art! That’s so great yours turned out well. I might just stick to the cheesecake, though, which is relatively easy compared to apple pie!
Sorry about the pecan pie, certainly makes a funny anecdote few years down the road 🙂 my family and I aren’t fans of pies, although my mom makes really delicious cakes such as Day and Night in Russian as well as Napoleon, (one year I tried to make it with her help, and the cream ended up too sweet, something my dad and my sister never let me forget… I often ask mom if perhaps she could invite my sister to make the cake so that way she won’t want it often haha)
I’m not sure if cream could ever be too sweet for me! I haven’t had Day and Night cake, but am very curious about it now!
Pastry’s a bastard of a thing to get right, the fat ratio and temperature are killers… I’ve watched enough pastry chefs in action to do what a lot of them do.
Send out for industrially made stuff.
Is that a baked filling in the cheesecake on a shortcrust base, or a set and forget fill? I’ve made both in the past week, and I’ve had to have a lot of long walks after… might as well just mainline calories, and be done with it. Especially the Nigella Lawson one.
I had to get Ellen to invest in a vacuum sealer to cope with the industrial amount of cream cheese she’d bought to make it all with. (That’s my excuse, and I’ll stick to it!)
I’ve never heard of pecan pie with rum in it – I think you just got incredibly unlucky. Could have been worse, could have been made with Baijiao….
Nothing’s worse than Baijiao.
The cheesecake used a graham cracker crust (graham crackers, sugar and butter) and the filling is cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, a couple of eggs, and I think maybe some salt. It’s baked in the oven for 20 minutes, so the crust bakes then.
Still trying to figure out how the rum go into that pecan pie. No one seems to know why that happened!
susan: don’t feel bad. i’ve watched numerous videos on youtube on how to make the perfect crust, and it still doesn’t turn out well. plus, i went to cooking school and practiced baking. Baking is a science, you have to bake with somone and touch and feel the consistency and texture. its really not so easy. that’s why i like cooking a lot better , you can improvise.
all the gest, Jean
Thanks so much, Jean! That made me feel better–and normal! I’m not sure I would have the patience to watch a video about making pie crust, which might explain my less-than-perfect crust!