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Blueberry Apple and Caramel Pi Day Slab Pie

Blueberry Apple and Caramel Pi Day Slab Pie

Guys.

Do you know what the date is, today?

March 14, 2015.

Or, 3.14.15

Which matches up with Pi and the first four numbers that follow its decimal point:

3.1415

MIND BLOWN.

This is a once in a lifetime coincidence; the next calendar occurrence will be in 100 years in 2115! In order to mark the occasion, I spent last weekend battling intense jetlag (I had just gotten back from Asia) to test and bake a number of recipes to find one worthy of the celebration. I believe this baby is it:

A couple of things:

Yes, yes, I know it's technically not a "pie" but instead a galette. Yes, yes, yes, a truer homage would have been to keep the pie in a circular shape (because Pi, after all, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter), as opposed to the oval above. But come on, cut me some slack! At this point, I was 3 test pies deep, running on about 5 hours of sleep, and just wanted to find a crust that was a) unfussy, b) allowed me to stamp out such HUGE numbers for Pi, and c) tasted good. Because I'm insistent on using all butter crusts (no shortening allowed in my household, them's the rules), the first two recipes that I tried had illegible numbers since the pie crusts kept shrinking. Oh well.



In the end, I used a heavily adapted version of Martha Stewart's pâte brisée recipe. Pâte brisée is basically French pie crust, but instead of blending the butter in by hand, the French instruct you to use a mixer or food processor to do so. The theory is that a food processor will better distribute the butter throughout the dough, which leads to a flakier, sturdier crust (most French patisserie tends to require a heartier crust to hold all the cream in the pastry). However, with a food processor, it's easy to overmix the dough, often leading to a crust that's dense and flat. I ended up finishing the mixing process by hand in order to avoid this problem. My resulting pie crust had a texture that was in between pâte brisée and traditional pie crust: a stronger, heartier crust that allowed me to stamp out and maintain my shapes, but also stayed true to the texture and flavor of good ol' American pie. Ace.

As for the filling, I was inspired by this blueberry caramel sauce recipe from Bon Appetit that I've had bookmarked for many years now. I worried that it might be too intense on its own, so at the last second I added in some Opalescent apple chunks to add some tart bursts of flavor here and there. My worries were in vain — the caramel flavor chilled out in the baking process and blended in wonderfully with the blueberries and apples. It's definitely a flavor combination I'll be exploring again soon!

Happy 3.1415 Day!!!


Some baker's notes:

• Not a pie baker? Me either. But I've done it enough times to be able to fake it — check out this salty honey pie recipe for some of my ultimate pie baking tips! Tips for this particular recipe include using the coldest ingredients and equipment possible (I froze my butter overnight before using, as well as stuck my food processor bowl and blade in the fridge overnight because I'm anal like that), flouring your work surface and equipment liberally, and yep, letting the dough rest overnight for a tender crust. Plan ahead for this one!


• Don't overdo the liquid in the pie crust recipe. When I was testing recipes, I found it difficult to make pie with a food processor because I would overshoot the liquid and end up with a crust was sticky, soggy, gooey and gross. It's hard to see how much you're adding to the crust when you use a food processor — this is why I have you stopping the food processor early and finishing the rest by hand. Use your judgement and add the liquid provided a tablespoon at a time, just until the dough starts to come together. Add only as much as that, and no more — you want to get to the point where it's still a little bit dry and you're having a little bit of difficulty keeping the dough together; it's okay to have a few pea-sized bits of dough fall off here and there as you're patting it together. Less liquid means a flakier, crispier and ultimately more tender crust.


• A note on the filling — it will seem like there's not enough filling for the pie, especially when you're spreading out the ingredients on the base before covering and baking. That's on purpose; I deliberately skimped on the filling because I wanted a larger crust to filling ratio, ensuring that each bite would have an almost equal amount of crust to filling. I like to think of this pie as a giant pop tart, basically. But if you're a traditionalist and want more filling than pie filling than crust, up the filling quantity by adding half of the amount provided to the filling's ingredients list.


• To stamp out the numbers, I used these Wilton alphabet and number cookie cutters. For clean, well-defined numbers, dip the sharp edge of each cookie cutter in flour before stamping out the shape.

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