Celebrating Pi Day with Grasshopper Pie

Hey Y'all,

Long time. no blog!

It has been a ridiculously busy month and I can't wait to blog all about it: I've been to so many places in the past month it's crazy:Georgia, South Carolina, Los Angeles, Muir Woods, Yosemite National Park...and I can't wait to blog about Yosemite.  Today's post however is about my 3rd favourite holiday.

After my birthday and Christmas, it's Pi Day. Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159. So the distance around a perfect circle divided by the distance across it, or the diameter.
 It's a day for baked goods and math, practically a day built for baking engineers.  Engineered Cupcake was started shortly before Pi Day 2013.

Last year I made French Silk Pie. This year I'm planning on making Grasshopper pie. I say planning because I just got back from Orange County, California 11pm last night and by 7:30am was doing work.
Grasshopper Pie is a mint chocolate pie, a retro classic. There's about 12 dozen recipes on the web for them but they mostly come in 3 different types

Marshmallow based: I don't know what it is about Americans and mallows. And yes if you're a first time visitor I'm American. I like mallows and all but they're a bit too sweet. for me and allot of the store bought ones have high fructose corn syrup. I think it's a 1950's thing. That said these grasshopper pies are sweet, simple to make, and often  a crowd pleaser, easily made vegan with Ricemellow fluff.

Frozen: This usually involves taking ice cream and/or whipped cream (occasionally marshmallows), mixing it together and freezing it. In terms of "convenience recipes" this is my preferred method.
It's pretty easy to find a chocolate cookie crust with simple or ingredients (or make one up with newman O's),and get some Mint icecream.  This recipe from is Mod Meals on MendenHall (NC girl!)  my fave.

Custard based: This version takes allot of patient but was the way that I made it up from when I stopped making the mallow based until I came up with this new version about 6 years ago.  I basically used the recipe from Epicurious.

Silky smooth method: This my favourite, basically it's based off of one my favorite pies. The pie that I made for Pi Day last year in fact: French Silk Pie. I contemplated drumming
out another type of pie. But outside of the fall/winter's sweet potato pies I rarely just bake pies for the sake of it. I'll whip up somebody's favorite if I'm headed to a party
or wine class. Besides so many people just think there's only one way to make a french silk pie Like most french silk recipes this has raw eggs so be sure to use fresh pasteurized eggs.  This recipe also has not 1 but 2 liqueurs. Which lead one of my 15 year old cousins (now a sophmore at UNC Asheville) to say "Oh it's a naughty grasshopper pie!" . It was funny and cute so the name stuck.


Naughty Grasshopper Pie

Crust
2 cups Chocolate cookie crumbs: (newman o's, chocolate wafes, etc)
1/2 cup melted butted
1 deep dish pie pan
Chop cookies i food processor. Stir in butter well. Transfer to pie crust and pack down well.

You can bake this on 350 for a firmer crust but make sure it's completely cool before you add the filling.
If you need this in hurry you're a bit inpatient (like me) you can just refrigerate it well.

Filling
3/4 cup  Butter room temperature
1/2 cup Sugar
3 large Eggs
3 ounces white chocolate (if more than 60% cacao use 2oz)
2 tbsp cream de menthe
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. let butter soften to room temperature
2.  melt chocolate with cream de menthe, set aside
3. whip butter until smooth
4.  add sugar, one quarter at a time. allow ample time so mixture is smooth not gritty
5. add chocolate scrap sides
6.  add vanilla
7.  beat in eggs, one at a time. Be sure that each egg is fully incorporated before adding another egg. Filling will be light brown and quite fluffy.
8.  Pour filling into COOL pie crust. Wrap with clear plastic wrap and let chill at least 2 hours (4 is preferred but I know how it is...) 

Topping:
1.5 cup heavy whipped cream
2-3 tbsp powdered sugar sifted
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp mint Bailey's (optional.

1. Nota bene (Note well) For best results use chilled beaters, bowl, and very cold cream please. 
2. Beat in   cocoa, into cream till slightly thickened.
3. Add sugar to taste beat till soft peaks
4. add Bailey's and beat till slightly stiff peaks
5. Using a piping bag pipe onto pie (I use a Atco 21 tip) 
6. Garnish as desired I use chopped Andes candies

Get this: next year it will be 3.14.15 what's so great about that well Pi is: 3.14159265359. I sense a Pi Day party in my 2015 social calendar.

P.S This is an extra special Pi Day for me as it's my first Pi day in engineering work. More about that in the next post!