Happy Pi Day!

I'm showing my geeky roots and going back to when I taught math. On March 14, math teachers have started celebrating a holiday called Pi Day! Earlier in the week I gave you some links and ideas of lessons to help with the celebration. Since Hazel is 3 and we are pursuing a Waldorf education we didn't bother with all the geometry stuff and we went to my favorite part--baking pie!

Hazel has been asking to bake a pie for awhile so it seemed like the perfect time to grant her wish. Normally I buy the refrigerator crusts so I don't have to deal with the rolling pin, etc. however for her first pie, I figured we should do it right and we made everything from scratch.

Mixing the flour and salt

I couldn't find my mother's pie crust recipe and didn't feel like searching the back of my recipe shelf for it (and didn't want to make my mother search for her copy either), so I used the recipe in my Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook. We followed the recipe exactly however after searching for at least 40 minutes I gave up finding my pastry blender/cutter and we used forks.

Feeling the dough

I decided making it from scratch really wasn't bad and it rolled out very easily. Of course it was not perfect circles like the refrigerator ones, but we had fun. I had to explain to Hazel that her rolling pins in her kitchen and play dough area are not for real food. She did not completely get this, but gave up on the fight and helped me with mine and then "rolled" it more when I had finished.

"Rolling" the dough

We of course made apple pie since that is Daddy's favorite dessert. My job was to peal and cut the apples. Then I passed them to Hazel who put them in the food processor to slice them. She enjoyed being the food processor operator.

For the filling we cut up five Granny Smith apples (green ones) and added about 1/2 cup (a little less because we didn't have much left) sugar and one tablespoon of flour and one teaspoon of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and a dash of allspice. We were following a basic recipe in Better Homes & Garden however they said to only add one of the spice choices and I always like to experiment with them. Then you let it sit for 10-15 minutes (while you make the crust).

Our Filling

Then of course you layer your pie and decorate the top. We of course used pi theme and then sprinkled the top with cinnamon-sugar mix (and any leftover crust got sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rolled to make the cookies my great grandmother would make for my dad). Then of course bake it at 375 degrees 25 minutes with the edge covered (with foil or pie cover) and 20 minutes without the edge covered. I found mine took a little longer to get somewhat brown.

Ready to go in oven

Of course we couldn't wait for Pi Day and tried it out tonight and loved it!