Admittedly, I have some nerdy tendencies.
I have a Star Wars family on my car
I am a fountain of useless knowledge which makes me pretty good at Trivial Pursuit
And I love a good theme day. Like today, March 14th which is known to some as Pi Day.
What is Pi Day you ask? Well aside from a letter in the Greek alphabet, Pi or π is a number. It’s the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter and it’s been calculated to over 10 TRILLION numbers so let’s use 3.14 for simplicity. If you look at the calendar, March 14 or 3/14, is Pi day.
So I celebrate by making pie. Apple pie of course, because if I’m going to be dorky about numbers, I’m going to throw in an oblique reference to Newton and physics so I can totally geek out and embarrass my children. But they don’t suffer much. They get to eat pi!
The recipe I use has been cobbled together over the years so I don’t know where it came from originally.
Pi Day Apple Pie
Crust
2 Cups all purpose flour
1 Cup lard or shortening (sometimes I will use 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup lard or shortening)
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp cold water
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cut the fat into the flour and salt with 2 knives, a pastry blender or in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Combine wet ingredients and add to dry until it all pulls together. Divide into 2 parts, flatten into disks, wrap in paper or plastic wrap and chill 15 minutes.
Roll each disk into a round. (I like to do this between pieces of parchment paper) Place one round onto a 8 or 9 inch pie plate.
Pie
6 cups peeled, sliced apples. I like to use a tart apple, or mix a few varieties
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 Tbsp flour
dash of salt
1-2 Tbsp unsalted butter (Omit the salt if you are using salted butter)
In a large bowl, pour the lemon juice over the apple slices. Toss to coat. Add the sugar, spices, flour and salt and toss to coat well. Pour the apple mixture into the bottom pie crust, dot the top of the apples with the butter cut into little pieces, top with the other pie round, making sure to cut the vent hole in the shape of Pi.
Bake in a preheated 400 Degree Fahrenheit oven for 20 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 Fahrenheit and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown with nice thick bubbling juices.
