I come from a family of great pie bakers, so Pi Day presented a good excuse to pull out the recipes and bake a family favorite. But which one to choose? Peach, blackberry, cherry, pumpkin, lemon, chocolate, coconut cream… So many choices!
So many calories!
When one is age five, growing is good. When one has lived five decades, growing can be hazardous to one’s health. But this isn’t just any Pi Day; this is the Pi Day of the Century. On this Pi day, at 9:26:53 a.m., the planets aligned, the angels sang, and the date and time exactly matched the first 10 digits of Pi.
Okay, so maybe the planets and angels went about their business as usual. But you have to admit, something that happens once every hundred years is worth celebrating. Pie shops gave away pie today. Someone from a family of pie bakers (and a blogger to boot) surely couldn’t let this momentous occasion pass without baking something.
I decided to be creative. A friend of ours recently started baking pecan pie in a muffin tin. He makes the cutest little single-serving pies you ever saw. Why not adapt that idea to cream pie and make a variety instead of settling for one flavor? Since I’m the one cooking, I picked three of my favorites: coconut cream, chocolate, and lemon. After a few minutes of digging in the recipe box, I found the family-famous recipes of two aunts and tweaked the ingredients so that I could use the same base for all three flavors. I figured the base would probably make a dozen muffin-size single serving pies, which is pretty convenient since there were 12 cups in my muffin tin. Since some ingredients are unique to each flavor, I had to figure how much of each would be needed for one-third of a recipe.
Using math on Pi day… how appropriate! The result was not only a lot of fun, but pretty tasty if I do say so myself! Happy Pi day!
Pie Sampler
Line each cup of a 12-cup muffin tin with your favorite pie crust (from a recipe or a box from the refrigerator case, your choice). Bake at 350 degrees until light golden in color, 5 to 8 minutes.
Pie Filling Base:
1 cup sugar
4 Tablespoons corn starch
1/8 teaspoon salt
Mix and divide in to three equal portions.
Separate three eggs. Save the egg whites to use later in the meringue.
Portion 1 – Coconut Cream
Add
1 egg yolk
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup coconut
1 pat butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix well. Cook in the microwave in a glass dish until thick, approximately 2-1/2 minutes. Whisk well and spoon into four of the pre-baked crusts in the muffin tin.
Portion 2 – Chocolate
Add
1 egg yolk
2/3 cup milk
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1 pat butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix well. Cook in the microwave in a glass dish until thick, approximately 2-1/2 minutes. Whisk well and spoon into four of the pre-baked crusts in the muffin tin
Portion 3 – Lemon
Add
1/2 cup boiling (or very hot) water Mix well and cook in a glass dish in the microwave until smoothly thickened, about 2 minutes.
Stir 2 Tablespoons lemon juice into the set-aside egg yolk.
Add the lemon-egg mixture and 1 pat butter or margarine into the thickened pie base mixture.
Mix well. Cook 90 seconds in the microwave.
Spoon into the last four pre-baked crusts in the muffin tin.
Meringue:
3 egg whites (set aside from previous egg separation)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
Beat egg whites and salt until frothy.
Add cream of tartar and sugar, a little at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form.
Spoon meringue onto each of the 12 “pies,” being careful not to spread the meringue beyond the crust. Sprinkle extra coconut on the meringue of the four coconut cream pies.
Bake in a 350 degree oven until the meringues are light golden brown.
To remove, run a knife gently around the perimeter of the muffin tin and lift out carefully.