Pi day is always a great excuse to make a pie and Animal Crossing also celebrates this fun day of pi appreciation. I personally struggle the most with making a good pie crust that is flaky and not dense and tough and found a couple of recipes from my grandmother’s collection that said they were flaky and a “fail-proof” crust recipe. I took the recipe using lard and it the recipe below is what written on the note card with the exception of chilling the cut lard and flour mixture before the final step of water. I added this step to increase the chance of a flaky pie crust and not melting the lard.
The filling of this pie is a typical apple pie filling but can be adjusted for sweetness to your preferences. As it is now, the filling isn’t too sweet and the lemon juice helps to balance the sugar. Make sure you don’t add too much of the juice to the pie before baking otherwise the bottom crust might become soggy.
Pi Pie
Ingredients
Pie Crust
- 3 c all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 c lard
- 10 tbsp water ice cold
Pie Filling
- 6 Granny Smith apples peeled and sliced
- ¾ c granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 egg beaten
Instructions
To make the pie crust
- Combine flour and salt and cut lard into the mixture until about the size of peas. Place in freezer for about 10 minutes to keep lard from melting.
- Remove from freezer and add the ice cold water. Mix until mostly combined but be careful not to over work dough.
- Divide dough into 2 and form into balls. Refrigerate until needed.
To make the pie
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Grease a 9" pie tin. Roll out one of the pie crust on a lightly floured surface until it is large enough to fit to the edges of the tin.
- Prepare the filling by mixing together the peeled and sliced apples, granulated sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon in a bowl. Allow to sit for a few minutes
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the second pie dough until it is large enough to fit over top the pie. Cut a pi symbol out of the center of the rolled out dough.
- Drain the liquid from the apples and place in the bottom pie crust, mound the apples in the center.
- Place top pie dough with pi symbol cut out on top and pinch the top and bottom crusts together around the edge of the pie.
- Brush top of pie with the beaten egg and bake for 25 minutes,
- Reduce temperature to 375°F and bake for an additional 30 minutes or until golden brown. Check pie periodically, if edge browns too fast then carefully cover with strip of tinfoil to prevent burning.