Saturday, March 14, 2009

Happy Pi Day!


Pie for Pi Day, the geekiest holiday I can think of.

Cheated on this one a bit by buying Pillsbury pie crusts (the kind you unroll and use however you want, not the pre-formed kind), but made the filling from scratch with a mix of fresh granny smith apples and red anjou pears, some of my homemade applesauce from last fall, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a bit of ginger and clove. Baked according to the instructions in my William-Sonoma Essentials of Baking book, it came out perfectly golden brown and bubbly (as you can see). Was reportedly delicious, though I didn't have any myself - my coworkers demolished it before I could get myself a slice.

I was going for simple on this one because I was trying to watch the Rangers win a road game at the same time, and I knew I'd just be bringing it into work the next day. However, J still wants pie, and frankly so do I, and so I'm thinking of challenging myself a bit later to make a lemon coconut meringue pie for our own Pi Day celebration. Guess we'll see how that goes - I'll update this post with Pi Day pie number two should it come out well.

--------------------
EDIT 03/15/09



Ta da! My first ever lemon meringue pie, with coconut-scented meringue and shredded coconut toping both the curd and the meringue. It was perfect, lemony and not too sweet with just the right amount of aromatic coconut, and perfectly firm and sliceable thanks to a tip I picked up from this recipe on allrecipes.com: thicken the curd with cornstarch and flour to help it set up into a stable layer after baking and refrigeration. I never would have thought of that on my own, but in retrospect it makes perfect sense. This technique will save my future attempts at lemon squares, which I've always more-or-less failed at, and may make possible an original recipe which also failed the first time around... once I have a chance to try it, I will be sure to share, but for now its my secret. *wink*

Have you ever made pie for Pi Day?

No comments: