Pi-Pie

And why not celebrate pi with pie?

Ever since a)Chris told me that this past Saturday was Pi Day and b)I realized I had to make The Beloved a birthday dessert, I was destined to make a pie.  I’m experiencing a Lazy Streak right now, and I just wasn’t feeling like dragging out the rolling pin (you may roll your eyes, if you want).  Plus, I’m a little bit over having to do all my work on the stove top.  Curse this wee kitchen!  Ahem.

At any rate, I decided a meringue crust would be in order–no rolling, just some whisking.  Then, I realized we had frozen raspberries and blackberries in the freezer from some long-ago ill-fated plan to “make smoothies sometime.”  So, berry pie in meringue crust?  Why not.

I recently got some cool nuts and dried fruit from the lovely folks at Oh Nuts.  I’ll be posting a review very soon, but I figured that Pi Day was the perfect time to break some of these little guys out.  Roasted hazelnuts?  Sure–I’ll just grind them up and throw them in the meringue for a dacquoise crust.  Plump dried blueberries?  Toss some in with the other berries.  Yum.

Here’s how the whole deal went:

A somewhat-slumped dacquoise crust. See those little lozenge things? They used to be lovely rosettes piped right up on the rim. Curse you, pan spray.

Dacquoise crust

• 3 egg whites
• heavy pinch of salt (less w/o nuts)
• about 5 1/2 oz. sugar (I didn’t really measure–I just figure twice the weight of the egg whites)
• wee splash vanilla
• a couple of handfuls of roasted hazelnuts, finely ground

In your trusty stand mixer, whisk the whites, salt and a bit of sugar until foamy.  Add the rest of the sugar, a bit at a time, and then added the vanilla. Whisk at medium-high speed–not full on high–until peaks curl just a bit.  Medium stiff peaks, I guess you could call them.  Fold in the nuts and spread into a pan-sprayed pie plate.

Bake at 300 degrees for about 50 minutes, then turn off the oven.  Leave the door closed for another 45 minutes or so, and then open the door and let the crust cool down in the oven.

Trauma:  Egg whites make awesome glue.  How do you keep your crust from sticking forever in the pan?  Pan spray.  It works.  I found the slices still a bit of a pain to get out, but it was possible, with some diligence and quiet cursing.  The trauma was that the foam wanted to slide down into the pie plate on its thin sheet o lubricant.  There was nothing I could do.  Perhaps spreading the foam all the way to the very outside rim would have helped to hold it in place.  I’ll try that next time.  So, while not tall and proud, the shell did at least have the walls to hold the filling.  Next!

Melted bittersweet chocolate. We might have decided to mix it with peanut butter. Don't do that. The peanuts fought with the hazelnuts, and that's never good.

Lagniappe

As a treat for the Beloved, I melted some chocolate and spread it into the crust.  I’m nice that way.

Very tasty filling.

Berry Filling (which I really didn’t measure)

• 2 small containers each frozen blackberries and raspberries (bought fresh awhile back)
• large handful dried blueberries
• heavy pinch of salt
• sugar–probably about 3/4-1 cup  I used demerara
• splash pomegranate white vinegar (in place of a squirt or two of lemon juice)
• zest and juice of  1 orange
• about 1 TBSP minced crystallized ginger
• about 1/3 cup Pom liqueur with about 4 TBSP cornstarch dissolved in it

In a medium saucepan, combine everything but the cornstarch slurry.  Bring to a boil and cook down until kind of jammy, about 20-30 minutes.

Add the cornstarch slurry and cook until thickened, clear and raw cornstarch flavor is gone.

Cool for awhile, then pour into the shell.  Chill.  The end.

Decorated appropriately. Oh, those are cranberry pecans--I will tell you all about them tomorrow.

And how was it?  The filling was rich and thick and jammy and very intense.  I think that, if I decide to make something similar again, I’ll fold the fruit together with either some Italian meringue or some stabilized whipped cream, just to lighten it up.  The crust was awesome–salty/sweet/nutty/crisp/chewy.  Yay, me!  Like I said, that whole peanut butter thing didn’t work out so well, but plain chocolate would have been wonderful.  This is why we sometimes need supervision.  When we start saying to each other things that start with, “How about we try….” someone needs to Step In.

Overall, we were pleased with the results.  And since we have notes on how to improve upon this experiment, we win!

What has been your most successful (or unsuccessful) kitchen experiment?

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