The food world loves a good portmanteau – let us not forgot the cronut, the cruffin, or, for that matter, the turducken. Now, we have a new delicious word to add to our culinary lexicon: piecaken.

As the name suggests, the dish is a hybrid of pie and cake. (It hails from the States, where the default setting for pie is sweet – not meat – perish the thought!)

The invention has apparently existed for some time, (and there’s a competing version called the cherpumple, which frankly makes no sense to us) but according to the New York Times (no less!) the recent explosion on social media is down to this creation – a dessert designed for Thanksgiving by the team at David Burke Fabrik in New York.

A photo posted by David Burke fabrick (@davidburkefabrick) on Nov 20, 2015 at 2:34pm PST

It is one third apple turnover cake, one third pumpkin pie and one third pecan pie… and is apparently selling at a rate of 100 a day, for the paltry price of $49 (almost R700). The hashtag has spread like wildfire, and bakers of the world are dreaming up their own versions – everything from maple pecan pie in a dark chocolate fudge cake to apple and blueberry pies, baked in chocolate and vanilla cakes respectively, stacked on top of one another, and iced with cream cheese icing.

Piecaken! https://t.co/EfEepG9oGR pic.twitter.com/mHzH7GrHAV — Bethany Watson (@RadioBethany) November 25, 2015

We have yet to see any piecakens locally, although both The Boiler Room in Durban and Jason in Cape Town have been known to bake cheesecake inside cakes. (Jason periodically bakes a cheesecake inside a carrot cake, and The Boiler Room recently created a white chocolate cheesecake baked in a strawberry cake.)

The possibilities of proudly South African versions are endless. Just imagine: lemon meringue, peppermint crisp, milk tart piecaken or malva poeding klappertert piecaken, iced with caramel treat.

Your move, bakers.

Our latest creation! #doubletrouble white chocolate #cheesecake topped with #strawberry cake

A photo posted by Gina Neilson (@boiler_room_cafe) on Nov 6, 2015 at 2:23am PST