Pi Day was last weekend and we felt compelled to celebrate by, of course, baking and hosting a party!
I’m doing this in conjunction with my friend and inveterate hostess on the other side of the country, Barbara, from the Mantel and Table blog who is hosting a pi day celebration simultaneously - thus we have a Bicoastal Pi Day Pie Party blog hop!
For our party here, I decided on 11 pie types, 2 (3 if you count the hot fudge ingredient in the mud pie) sauces, and 1 tub of vanilla ice cream served in our brilliant ice bucket keep-cold solution.
The table was set with our new spring tablecloth and pi day napkins and a centerpiece comprised of assorted spring colored flowers in one standard and 3 shorter vases.
Here is the post mortem on the desserts along with links to the relevant recipes.
Freezer pies
I made 2 freezer pies, one of which was an ice cream pie and one a grasshopper pie which involves marshmallow, cream de menthe and whipped cream.
I was surprised that the grasshopper pie melted into a puddle before the evening was done - I had expected it to hold up better. For the ice cream pie, which I expected to be problematic, I had made a little ice jacket in a cake pan, so that stayed mostly frozen, though it made it initially way too hard to cut and eventually melted anyway. While I LOVE the taste, I think I will reserve this dessert for dinner parties rather than buffet entertaining in the future!
The grasshopper pie recipe I used is HERE. Note: I serendipitously found creme de menthe chocolate chunks in the baking aisle that made a perfect garnish for this pie.
The mud pie is the original Chart House restaurant recipe which is sketchy on details. It says make a cookie crust - I used a sleeve of Goya chocolate cookies, 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of melted butter and mixed it all together in a food processor, pressed the mixture into a pie tin, and baked it for ~ 10 minutes. I filled the cooled crust with a half gallon of softened coffee ice cream and popped it all in the freezer to set.
I made hot fudge using THIS recipe. Once cooled, I spread the fudge sauce on the ice cream pie and put it back in the freezer until party time - this was in the Chart House recipe, but a mistake in my opinion. When I do this again, I will spread the fudge sauce just before serving so it isn’t quite so solid and challenging to eat.
Fruit pies
I made the equivalent of 2 traditional fruit pies; apple and blueberry, but I made them as hand pies using mostly THIS recipe. Where I diverged were in the crust recipe - I relentlessly use my foolproof vodka crust recipe for anything calling for traditional pie crust, and in the apple pie filling where I used cardamon instead of the cinnamon/allspice mix called for. I also ended up adding some cornstarch to the apple filling to thicken it a bit.
These pies were adorable, delicious and very popular. I recommend ice cream on the side for either of these, and a drizzle of caramel sauce on the apple ones!
I also made a raspberry almond fruit tart which was gorgeous and disappeared fairly fast - it was a fan favorite.
I used to have a strawberry almond tart recipe that I made constantly when entertaining years ago, but the page is now oddly missing from the cookbook, so I had to work sort of from memory…the reason for raspberry instead of strawberry had nothing to do with flavor choice and everything to do with the smaller size of my only round tart pan (you HAVE to use round on pi day after all…) which I felt was better suited to the smaller size of whole raspberries rather than whole strawberries.
Cream pies
I made 3 types of cream pies; chocolate cream with THIS recipe (she calls it chocolate pudding pie), banana cream with THIS recipe, and coconut cream with THIS recipe.
Modifications - I used my vodka crust for the chocolate cream and topped it with leftover chocolate decorations from my last party, drizzled the banana cream with caramel, and used my vodka crust (1/2 recipe) modified with the addition of a half cup coconut for the coconut cream pie.
All of these were fabulous, and big hits…everyone has their favorite in the cream pie category it seems.
Citrus pies
I made two citrus flavored classics; a lemon meringue pie (recipe HERE) and a key lime pie (recipe HERE).
For the lemon meringue, I used my (yes) vodka crust again, made a basic meringue with more egg whites and without the corn starch shenanigans called for here and I topped the whole thing with a sprinkle of candied lemon zest as a pretty, identifying garnish.
For the key lime, I actually made the recipe as written - miracles do happen?! I served it with a side of delicious raspberry coulis which makes a wonderful pairing - rather like the lime rickies of erstwhile Dairy Queen fame.
Seasonal pie
Last, I made a ricotta pie - a new one for me. It is an Italian traditional Easter dessert, I believe, with a traditional pre-baked crust (I used - you guessed it - my vodka crust). For the filling I used THIS recipe which is not overly sweet and is topped with a dusting of cinnamon.
The recipe calls for draining your store-bought ricotta overnight to get it drier to keep the crust from getting soggy. Mine did not seem to render much, if any, liquid when I did this, so I would probably skip this step next time.
I also ended up baking this in a cake pan because I ran out of pie pans - I only own 6 actual pie plates. It is much harder to extract pie from straight sided pans, so I would invest in a few more pie plates if I ever have need of this many pies at a time again!
The pie is relatively light, considering, and was a nice contrast to some of the more sugary options. I’d definitely make it again. It is not as impressive looking or as nostalgic as the others so this was the one I had the most left from.
Because I made what amounted to half a pie per guest or so…I offered to-go pie boxes and encouraged everyone to take home a sampling of their favorites or anything they were too full to try!
I ended up with the equivalent of around 1 1/2 pies left over at the end of the evening and had to toss the remains of the ones that had melted, so only had ~ a little over 1 pie left to finish off. Sadly it only took us about three or four days to polish it all off!
Now please visit Barbara’s party to see what happened at her Wonderful and Surprising Pi Day Party!
Next year, pi day falls on a Sunday, so still a weekend and therefore still a party waiting to happen! I’m already scheming to do a savory and sweet combo of pies for next year - so dinner AND dessert!
