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Today, because it’s Pi Day (March 14, or 3.14), we celebrated by making, of course, Apple Pi Pie. (Pi, as most of you know, is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle which is always approximately 3.14). March 14 is also Albert Einstein’s birthday so that’s another reason to celebrate. We don’t always celebrate Pi Day, but here are a couple of previous attempts:
Apple Pi Pie 2014
Apple Pi Pie 2018
For the apple pie, you need
- 2 sheets of store-bought pastry*
- 5 large apples
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 Tablespoons butter
*recipe for homemade piecrust is below if you want to make it from scratch. Honestly, it’s better made from scratch. Store-bought is more convenient but doesn’t taste as good. (Trader Joe’s is easy to use but tastes and looks a bit more like bread dough than pie crust. Pillsbury is more pastry-like.)
To make Pi Pie, it helps if you have a Pi cookie cutter as well. We have made it cutting out Pi shapes by hand, but that’s pretty difficult (see 2014’s attempt). Also, I recommend Gala apples: if you use more tart apples such as Granny Smith, you will need to increase the amount of sugar.
The first step is to thaw the pastry if it’s frozen. Either leave in the fridge overnight or at room temperature for 45 minutes or so.
Once it’s thawed, roll each sheet out into a circle, keeping it between the wax paper if possible, and place it in the fridge to rest
.
Peel the apples, quarter, and slice thinly.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and stir into the apples.
Then remove one of the pastry rounds from the fridge and place over a 9-inch pie pan.
Trim extra pastry from around the sides and fill with the apples. Dot with cut up pieces of butter.
The next step is to prepare the top of the pie. Remove the other pastry round from the fridge and use your Pi cookie cutter to cut out a couple Pi shapes (or if no cookie cutter, cut by hand)
Let the top rest in the fridge again and then place gently on top of the filling. I also decorated the pie with the Pi shapes I had cut out.
Bake in a preheated 450-degree oven for 15 minutes and then turn down the heat and cook for another 30 minutes (checking every so often to make sure not to brown).
Happy Pi Day!
Ingredients for Pie Crust (if you want to make from scratch)
- 2 cups flour
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 5-6 Tablespoons ice cold water
Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter pieces and combine using a pastry cutter or 2 butter knives. When the butter is in pea-sized pieces, add 5 tablespoons of butter and form into two balls. Add additional water sparingly if needed. Let two balls of pastry rest in the fridge for 15 minutes and then roll out into rounds and follow the directions above for making the pie.
