Home › Forums › Baking — Desserts › Happy Pi Day 2021!
skeptic7.While I'm not baking pie today, since I did so last week, I thought that this Breaking Cat News comic sums up the day nicely:
I made our pie yesterday, so we can eat it today!
This is why I made the chocolate cream pie! When I was teaching, I used Pi Day for some fun exploration around circumference, diameter, radius, pi, etc. One of my favorite take-aways: "The equator is an imaginary lion running around the earth."
Lol, BakerAunt. Thanks. Love that imagery, chocomouse!
I was too lazy to bake anything today. I'm ordering a birthday cake for the end of the week which I'm looking forward to!!! Let someone else do the work. 😊😂
This year, King Arthur didn't do their 'pi day' sale. Anyway, I found a local source for Bob's Red Mill white pastry flour, which appears to be very similar to the King Arthur pastry flour for performance, and King Arthur doesn't seem to be carrying the powdered caramel coloring any more, so that's two less reasons to order anything from them.
Can't let a good Pie Day go to waste, I made a peach Pi and a pizza Pi.
I made the peach pie with frozen peaches and a crumb topping. I seasoned it with about a tsp of allspice and a tsp of almond extract. For the topping I used a quarter cup each of almond flour, AP and rolled oats, a tablespoon of sugar and about 3 tablespoons of walnut oil. I burnt the edge of the crust and should have used only 1/2 tsp of almond extract, but otherwise it came out good.
Almond extract is one those ingredients that is far too easy to use too much of, and it can overwhelm other flavors.
I did an apple Pie yesterday. I am trying to do Lent by finishing all my procrastinated projects and making a pie with Northern Spy apples is one of them. The apples have been in my refrigerator since October or November. I didn't have enough Northern Spy so I also used Winesap apples. The Northern Spy cooked up very soft while the Winesap were still firm and crisp.
Northern Spy is supposed to be a good cooking apple, but it may be that it softens much faster than Winesap, which is IMHO one of the best cooking apples available in this country. (There are some European varieties that I'd love to try, though.)
Cosmic Crisp ranks up there with Jonagold and Winesap, IMHO.
However, Jonagold is not an apple that keeps well, maybe Northern Spy doesn't either?
Winesaps are my favorite apple as far as flavor goes, and they are exceptionally good keepers. I think Northern Spy are suppose to cook soft without being mushy which is one of the reasons why they are suppose to be the best pie apple. They didn't keep as well as Winesaps being slightly softer as I cut them up.
