“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch..."

“....you must first create the universe.” Carl Sagan

It's Pi day, heralded all over town with various pie-related celebrations, several years worth of dedications on this forum alone...and our home was...pieless. I did, however, have one last batch of apples frozen from The Great Hays apple-picking & LTH whistle-stop tour of 2008, and it seemed only appropriate that we make our own pie to celebrate the history of mankind's understanding of the universe's great constant, the circle.

It seemed only fair, then, that like the Egyptians building the Great Pyramids of Khufu, we begin our pie-making with a plan, so, off to the internet I went. Since I already had a standard 9" pie pan conveniently in the form of a circle*, I was relatively certain I could come up with a graphical representation of this great mathematical tool. I tried an image search of pi, and to my delight, found that a retired Astrophysicist from North Carolina** by the name of Mike Reed had discovered a crop circle near Banbury Castle in the UK was in fact a coded representation of the first ten digits of pi. So I had a plan - now to make a pie. I used my standard pie dough formula, except - following a direction I'd seen on a PBS TV show, I subbed part of the water for vodka, making a wet pie dough that didn't have the proper chemical composition to create gluten (the show explained that gluten is formed when flour's two protiens, gliadin and glutenin are deformed in the presence of water, but alcohol doesn't create this reaction, therefore allowing you to add more liquid without risking a tough piecrust) The resulting easily-worked dough was rolled out into two circles in my pie form; one was pressed into the pie pan and the other went into the freezer, still in the vinyl pie form, to make it easy to handle.

Having a plan is one thing: implementing it is something else entirely. If our pie-making ancestors could bake a pie with a living fully-armored knight inside, I was confident that I could muster the mathematical skills to put this graphic on my top piecrust. The first hurdle was to mark the piecrust into even tenths - not as easy as it first appeared. I can cut across the diameter like nobody's business, but once you get me past sixths, I begin to falter. Once again, I sought solace from my mentor, the internet, who advised me that I could overlay the circle with a pentagram, cut a radius from each of the five points, and then divide each wedge in half. Next problem: how do I create a pentagram on my piecrust? For this, I turned to my husband, who proved once again that, while I could easily have married him for looks and valor, I was fortunate to have made brains the deciding factor: he suggested I lay out the pentagram with chopsticks (also useful knowledge if I ever decide to eschew science and dabble in the dark arts.) So, I began laying out my pi pie:

First, I used a cookie cutter to cut the circle out of the middle. Then, I set up the chopstick pentagram and drew a radius from each of its points.


Then, I divided each section into half, tracing out ten equal parts lightly with a knife point.


Then, I began to copy the code by outlining segments of my sections in a spiral, stepping out slightly for each number in pi: first three sections together, then, stepping out slightly along one radius, I outlined one, and poked a representation of the decimal point in it with one of the chopsticks.


Then I stepped out on its outer radius and outlined four more sections, and stepped out for the one, again for five, and finally, traced almost the entire crust for the nine. I used a marker top to cut out three circles for the ellipse to indicate the nearly infinite nature of pi. The now pi-embellished crust went back into the freezer to firm up. I then filled my pie with thawed apple filling, added raspberries for color, and placed my πcrust on the top.



It then went into a 350 degree oven for about an hour, and came out delectable, hot, and redolent with prehistoric calculus.



Like all things, inherent in its creation was its eventual and complete destruction...in a pool of melting vanilla ice cream.

* Through the magic of pi, we know that the circumference of my pie pan is just over 28 and a quarter inches. Its area is just over 63 and a half square inches.
**Edited to correct misinformation.

That's incredible. Your husband is clearly not the only one in your family with brains.

MHays,

To maintain the circular theme, I suggest next time cooking in a 360 degree oven.

You should take this pie concept to the next science fair. It would be interesting to see if the math instructors grasp the beauty of your efforts.

Thank you for another example of better living through imagination.

Regards,

This is so wonderful and brilliant! I will definitely be trying it next year.

Thank you for the kind words, everyone - from the three of you, that really means something! It's too bad Sparky already picked his science fair project, Cathy - it would have been fun to try! We did spend some time with a tape measure, measuring the pie, the plates, the glasses and converting the diameter to the circumference and back.

I also sent the link via email to Mr. Reed, who was kind enough to respond appreciatively.

Gratuitous shot of the pie's demise, apple-raspberry is now in my permanent rotation:

Just got permission from Mr. Reed to post our correspondence, I thought you all might enjoy it as I found the insight into his thought process enlightening:

From: MHays
To: M. Reed
Subject: Pi day
I’m hoping I have the correct Mr. Reed – I wrote this post in celebration of pi day, using your discovery. Fascinating!
viewtopic.php?p=248901#p248901
Thank you,
Mhays

From: M Reed
To: MHays
Subject: Re:Delicious looking Pi
Dear Ms. Hays,
Your very ingenious Pi pie looked delicious!
The Barbury Castle formation was certainly an unusual event. I believe it is the only time a specific numerical constant has been explicitly encoded in a crop circle.
Thank you for sending the link to your article.
Best wishes,
M Reed

From: MHays
To: MReed
Subject: RE: Delicious looking Pi
Thanks for your reply! If I may ask – what clued you in? I spent about 20 minutes looking at your proof until I finally figured out that it was much simpler than I was making it. I can’t imagine just staring at the image and getting that it was divided into tenths.

From: M Reed
To: MHays
Subject: Re: Delicious looking Pi
Dear Ms. Hays,
The decimal point triggered the realization that the first segment was longer than the second but shorter than the third as in 3.14, which lead to looking at the next few segments, which started to sound like Pi (3.14159), which lead to drawing lines through the jumps in radius which lead to seeing ten sectors and counting the number of tenths of a circle in each segment. It was rather exciting to see the full ten digits come out of it including the proper rounding of the last digit.
Maybe a new formation this year will do something similar.
Best wishes,
M Reed

From: MHays
To: M Reed
Subject: RE: Delicious looking Pi
Thank you very much, Mr. Reed, you just explained why I’m a writer and not an astrophysicist. Do you mind if I post your responses with my pie?
MHays

From: M Reed
To: MHays
Subject: Re: Delicious looking Pi
Dear M,
Not at all.... Best wishes for your writing.
M Reed

OTOH, as a writer, I did notice one thing about the crop circle: it was probably created by someone with a working knowledge of Indo-European languages, most likely English.

For instance, while the ellipsis is represented by three dots in our culture, other cultures use different representations - apparently in Chinese the ellipsis has six dots. The grouping of the numbers into tens infers understanding that viewers have a working knowledge of the decimal system (which, though common, is not universal - an alternate, but infrequently-used way of grouping numbers is the duodecimal system, or base 12, which we use for time and in imperial measurements.) In addition, the decimal point itself is not universally used as a separator between the integer and fractional portion of a number: for example, a comma is used in France and Germany - two of the countries closest to where this crop circle occurred.

And now back to your regularly-scheduled discussion of pie.

Ingenious!!! Thanks for sharing this. I'm going to have to pass this link on to my chemistry geek friend (she loves stuff like this--though maybe I shouldn't pass it on now that I've called her a geek).

Ok, so not a pi-based pie, but obliquely related to science - This year in school Sparky did a research report on his hero, Neil Armstrong. Since the child has a mind like a steel trap, come the end of July, he piped up "Mom, when is August 5? That's Neil Armstrong's birthday! Can we have a party for Neil Armstrong?" We finally settled on an informal get-together this weekend, with a special Neil-Armstrong-themed dessert. Sparky had asked me to make meringue astronauts (which I'd done for a space-themed birthday party years ago,) and I made an honest effort to do so, but the rains and humidity this weekend melted my meringue to sticky mush. I did some fast thinking and came up with this alternative, which Sparky was quite happy with:



I didn't really realize at the time how appropriate this was: Sparky's great-grandmother was a cartographer who helped create the maps used for the moon landing; and she was known for her pies - the recipe I used was adapted from a cookbook I inherited from her. I think, if she can see us from wherever she is, she must be quite tickled.

No astrophysicists this year, but I did want to celebrate pi day with something a bit more than just a plain pie. Thanks to FigMolly, I had the chance to go all-out and make enough pies to satisfy even my mathmatical heart (well, we made 3 pies, so we're short just over a tenth of a pie. Maybe for dinner.)

There's a lot of information out there on what pi does, but not on what pi means. This year, I decided our pi celebration pies would illustrate the meaning behind the digits of pi. I settled on πneapple-rhubarb, which not only conveniently has the appropriate sound in the beginning, but also comes in a perfect-for-pi-day circular shape. After peeling, slicing, and coring the pineapple, I used a coffee can to get more accurate circular shapes.

Sparky laid a string across the diameter of each slice, cutting it to fit:



We then measured around the circumference of the circle, cutting a wedge at each end of the string:



Once we had a segment cut out, we used it to measure the rest of the slice:



We continued this method until we were left with the .14...:



For illustrative purposes, we slid a thin slice of rhubarb between the three large sections:



Then we cut a section of rhubarb stalk into a wedge to fit the remaining piece:



And we wound up with a graphic representation of π; a circle divided by its diameter into three pieces plus a little bit more.



These went on top of our pineapple-rhubarb filling:


4 stalks of rhubarb, cut in about 1 inch pieces
2 fresh pineapples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup demerara sugar
3/4 cup vanilla sugar
3 tablespoons quick tapioca
1 piecrust pastry
Sugar for garnish

Line your baking dish with your piecrust, leaving enough overhang to crimp later. Slice 3-6 thin rounds of pineapple to garnish (see above) depending on the diameter of your pie plate. Cut the remaining pineapples into 1 inch chunks, reserving about 1/4-1/3 of one pineapple. Mix the rhubarb, sugar, and pineapple chunks in a bowl to make sure they're thoroughly combined. Pour into piecrust. Put the reserved pineapple in the blender, blend smooth and pour over the pie, thoroughly coating the filling. Place your garnish on the top, sprinkling liberally with sugar. Crimp the piecrust edge decoratively. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45-50 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly. Cool thoroughly and enjoy.

Mhays wrote:No astrophysicists this year, but I did want to celebrate pi day with something a bit more than just a plain pie. Thanks to FigMolly, I had the chance to go all-out and make enough pies to satisfy even my mathmatical heart (well, we made 3 pies, so we're short just over a tenth of a pie. Maybe for dinner.)

There's a lot of information out there on what pi does, but not on what pi means. This year, I decided our pi celebration pies would illustrate the meaning behind the digits of pi. I settled on πneapple-rhubarb, which not only conveniently has the appropriate sound in the beginning, but also comes in a perfect-for-pi-day circular shape. After peeling, slicing, and coring the pineapple, I used a coffee can to get more accurate circular shapes.

Sparky laid a string across the diameter of each slice, cutting it to fit:



We then measured around the circumference of the circle, cutting a wedge at each end of the string:



Once we had a segment cut out, we used it to measure the rest of the slice:



We continued this method until we were left with the .14...:



For illustrative purposes, we slid a thin slice of rhubarb between the three large sections:



Then we cut a section of rhubarb stalk into a wedge to fit the remaining piece:



And we wound up with a graphic representation of π; a circle divided by its diameter into three pieces plus a little bit more.



These went on top of our pineapple-rhubarb filling:


4 stalks of rhubarb, cut in about 1 inch pieces
2 fresh pineapples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup demerara sugar
3/4 cup vanilla sugar
3 tablespoons quick tapioca
1 piecrust pastry
Sugar for garnish

Line your baking dish with your piecrust, leaving enough overhang to crimp later. Slice 3-6 thin rounds of pineapple to garnish (see above) depending on the diameter of your pie plate. Cut the remaining pineapples into 1 inch chunks, reserving about 1/4-1/3 of one pineapple. Mix the rhubarb, sugar, and pineapple chunks in a bowl to make sure they're thoroughly combined. Pour into piecrust. Put the reserved pineapple in the blender, blend smooth and pour over the pie, thoroughly coating the filling. Place your garnish on the top, sprinkling liberally with sugar. Crimp the piecrust edge decoratively. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45-50 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly. Cool thoroughly and enjoy.

aha....my pie coma was way too intense to have realized this at the time--nice work!!! (and nice meeting you and your fam )

You too, boudreax!

Mhays wrote:No astrophysicists this year, but I did want to celebrate pi day with something a bit more than just a plain pie.

Well, you made it seem like pineapple/rhubarb is a natural combination that everyone knows about. I think you give yourself too little credit. It was not only interesting, but delicious. And when I mentioned it so some friends later, they had the same reaction I did: "I never would have thought of that." I definitely plan on giving your recipe a try.

I feel I should mention here that the recipe is in part cribbed from the Taste of Home website, which puts it right into the heart of Americana standards - had I not stumbled on it while surfing for ideas, I wouldn't have thought of it, either. The two flavors really did work well together.

BR - the other direction in which I was tending was a pineapple-passionfruit pie; this was one of the few recipes on the web that used fresh pineapple, which I think really is important for this type of pie.

Mhays wrote:I feel I should mention here that the recipe is in part cribbed from the Taste of Home website, which puts it right into the heart of Americana standards - had I not stumbled on it while surfing for ideas, I wouldn't have thought of it, either. The two flavors really did work well together.

BR - the other direction in which I was tending was a pineapple-passionfruit pie; this was one of the few recipes on the web that used fresh pineapple, which I think really is important for this type of pie.

Ahhh . . . thanks for posting - I might just have to try that recipe out. I guess we would have been asking too much to have you bring 3 pies and the clever science experiment. I'm guessing you guys had your hands full. But it was all good, real good.

Pi Day 2011: PIgnoli Punition Pie from Michele Hays on Vimeo.

Pi(e) Day is in full swing here at my office today! It's our Third Annual Pi(e) Day celebration and it's one of our company favorites. So far, we've easily gone though 10 pies...with more that will be showing up throughout the day.

If you were my co-worker, this would be akin to a national holiday (except one in which you make sure you don't miss work!!)

This is prime fodder for the dessert exchange. Please consider coming!!

I think our third annual office Pi(e) Day celebration was once again a success. I think I counted about a total of 22 pies that people had made/brought in to share. I was the only one who made quiches (the two pictured above). One was broccoli and roasted red pepper and the other was mushroom/onion/sausage. (I also made a raspberry/chocolate truffle tart/pie). I think the quiches were both gone in less than an hour this morning. Next year, I think I'll make all savory pies.

When I left work at 4pm there were just the remains of three pies. IMO, the hands-down "winner" (though it's NOT a competition) was a co-worker's homemade apple/gruyere pie. Oh, heavens...it was MARVELOUS. I'm going to have to get that recipe!

All-in-all, a very fun "team-building" experience at work today.

"Nobody hates pie." - my mom

Love it! I wish we had that at our place.

FWIW, we didn't have it until about 3 years ago when just I and a couple other bakers at the office thought it'd be fun to bring in pies for Pi Day. It's since caught on, HR no "officially" sanctions it and it's an annual "thing." One of those, "Better to ask forgiveness than permission" things.

It's certainly become one of the more popular and fun things we do at our office.

Carpe Piem! ("Seize the pie!")