If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0

~Happy Pi Day Internetz~

A couple of days ago I ventured into the dark world of all things nerd and dived deep into research. I thought I may have come up with possibly the perfect nerd food. But alas, the results did not live up to my expectations. And in the immortal words of Dr. Raymond Stantz:
"Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities; we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results!"

So I went back to the research and back into the kitchen to come up with pi results because the blog world is no University. Am I right people? You demand results!
Did you know there is actually a website for all things officially sanctioned and nerd approved? Well I did and I found this:

And it harkened back to some of my earlier research:

PB&J indeed. But the real clincher?

That's right, my very own boyfriend, the King of all things Nerd Cooking oriented, has made Peanut Butter Pie. I didn't use his recipe of course, cause I'm stubborn like that, but it set me dutifully on my path.
So you know what THAT means...What time is it???


I have some history with pie. Most notably my new found love of individual pies which I call CupPies. In fact, I managed to find the true purpose behind those metal paper liners for cupcakes. Pie crust weights! Albeit this time around I opted for leftover chickpeas that I had bought for a basque chicken broth that I'll probably never get around to posting but I digress. So my pie crust weights were a little less, ahem, artistic this time around.

TOBAC felt it necessary to nose his way into the whole experience as well. He considers himself the residential expert on all things peanut butter. Thus the roughly 237 recipes involving peanut butter on this blog. However, he is most assuredly NOT a nerd. Among his motivational repertoire are classics like "C's get degrees" and "Good enough for government work." Most telling perhaps is the fact that he played sports in high school. Yes, it's a good thing we didn't know each other in high school or my Monkey never would have happened. So he was rather unceremoniously kicked out of the Lab, ehhrr, kitchen.


Kitchen Parade has the round-up for the Pi(e) celebration so please be sure to check out the amazing creations that everyone came up with. I think you might be surprised at the incredible variety and creativity. And at some point in time LemonTartlet will hopefully get some interesting Nerd Food submissions to share with the food blogosphere. You still have plenty of time to come up with your own Nerd Creation as it's all in the name of celebrating her birthday April 5th. Nerd birthday cupcakes anyone?



PB&J CupPies

Pie Crust:
2- 1/2 cups AP Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1 t Salt
1/3 cup Shortening, refrigerated
1 cup unsalted Butter, refrig.
1 Egg yolk
1 T Apple Cider Vinegar
approx. 5 T ice cold water

I used a food processor to prepare the dough and cut in shortening and butter. Combine flour, sugar and salt then add shortening sliced into pieces by the tablespoon. Do the same with the butter. Only pulse to just coat the shortening and butter. It should like little peas are forming. In a small bowl combine the egg yolk and vinegar. Add to flour mixture and use pulse setting until just combined. Gradually add water a tablespoonat a time as needed. The dough is ready when it has just come together. It will be a little sticky but it will be fine after refrigeration. Using wrap or parchment paper, take dough and shape into long log. Wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes (or can be preapred up to 2 days before you plan to use it).

Prepare a cupcake tin by first rubbing it down with butter or nonstick spray. It just needs a light coating along the top and barely anything inside of the cups. Place the paper lining into the cups.
Take your dough out of the refrigerator and unwrap over a floured surface. Gently roll out the dough, turing it so that it doesn't stick and maintains a good round shape. Now for the very complicated mathematical configurations:

Ehhh...not so much.

Yeah, turns out my margarita glass makes the perfect round. There comes a time in every woman's life when she realizes that margaritas are much more functional and practical than math... and men. A little tidbit from me to you.


Roll out the dough to a 1/4" thickness. Very carefully fold it over and place it into the cupcake lined tin. Gently press the sides down and into the tin and line the edges gently pressing out. The edges will come over the top a little but don't cut those down just yet.

I ended up with 9 cuppies. Why 9 you may ask? Well because it's a perfect square, duh! It is Area= Pi times radius squared after all. Didn't know you came here for a math lesson did ya? That'll learn ya.
I also did some very complicated and sophisticated computations to figure out the exact amount of pie crust pastry I would need left over to cover the pies.


I'd share the formula, but it's proprietary.

Wrap up the remaining pie crust pastry and place into the refrigerator to keep cooled until you need it later. Once you have the pie pastry assembled you will want to take the metal liners and place them into the cups. You'll then fill the metal liner with your weights of choice so that the crust won't shrink during baking. You can then crimp the edges so they create a lip for the pies. Cut off any unneeded excess.

Bake the crusts at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove them from the oven. Very carefully (as in please don't burn yourself) remove the metal tin and weights from the crust. Place the crusts back into the oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Let cool while you prepare your peanut butter.


Peanut Butter Filling:
16 oz. Roasted Peanuts (salted or unsalted per your preference)
8 oz. Cream Cheese
1/2 cup unsalted Butter
1/2 cup Honey
2 T molasses

Chop peanuts in food processor. Add ingredients in order one at a time. Honey will blend better if it is lightly heated first (just 10 seconds in the microwave did the trick). Let the processor blend everything together until you get a nice creamy consistency.


Place a large dollop of peanut butter into the bottom of your cooled crusts. Smooth out until you have the crust half filled with peanut butter.



For the jelly I was in no mood to go the homemade route. And I'll be honest. Making peanut butter is nerdy and fun. Jelly...not so much. I deferred to Monkey on this one. Her being a young nerd in training and all. She felt rather passionately that there was only one option when it came to PB&J.

Just bite the bullet. Go out and grab yourself an 18 oz. jar of Smucker's brand Grape Jelly. No substitutions or you're just a poser. Spoon the jelly into the cuppies to the top. I used almost all of the 18oz jar. I had about a 1/8 cup leftover. Hold on to this cause we'll use it later.

Now it's time to prepare the crust tops. Remove the pastry from the fridge and gently roll it out again to a 1/4" thickness.

Yet another sophisticated pastry cutting tool.
Cut your rounds for the tops. I wetted the edges of the baked pie crusts with a little water and pastry brush. And by pastry brush I mean the cute little paint brush I stole from my kid a million years ago for just this purpose. Place the round over the top of the cuppies and gently seal the edges so that the water can seal. Now remember that leftover jelly? Place it into a small microwaveable cup and heat for just 10 seconds. Stir with pastry brush. Place into the microwave for another 10 seconds. It should be a nice syrup now. Brush the tops of the pies with the jelly syrup. Finally, you'll want to cut small vents in the middle of the crust for baking.


in process...
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. The crust should be a nice golden brown.



Fresh from the oven.

I had actually considered being a smart aleck and decorating these with mathematical equations. But they were just too darn purty to muck up. I caved in my nerdy duties. I'll admit it.



Now is that just the best darn looking PB&J you ever saw or what?!?!

Coming Clean
I'm ashamed to admit this and probably wouldn't if this wasn't relatively confidential *coughcough* but I had planned to bring these pies to work to share the Pi Day fun with my nerdy coworkers (trust me, they wouldn't mind me calling them nerds, they would be proud to represent). Uhm, yeah. They didn't make it. Because oh.my.GAH! These were so freakin good. I'm not a huge PB&J fan but the homemade peanut butter and wonderful flaky crust was so amazing against the sickening sweet jelly. It was fun to eat and incredibly good. Prebaking the crust allows the crust to stay crispy so it doesn't get soggy after you add your pie filling. It worked like a charm with this recipe. I could imagine the myriad of possibilities with these guys~ nutella, or perhaps a creamy third layer between the PB&J, or chocolate...oh sweet baby bejeezus, chocolate! I honestly think this would make for a fun treat for kids, they'd get a kick out of their own personal pies and biting into it to find PB&J. I'd also like to defend the nerdiness factor of these pies. Only a nerd would spend half a day trying to perfect PB&J. And then admit the fact that they essentially created a kid's quintessential dream snack.

I must also admit that my mathematical prowess was not quite of the caliber I may have represented it to be *coughcough* and the crust recipe I used would have been perfect for 10 pies rather than just 9. However, I should point out that while 10 is not a perfect square it does sound much nerdier than a dozen. It seems so binary, no? I ended up making the top crust a little thicker and threw out some extra. It all worked out in the end because the top crust brushed with jelly tasted so delicious, but if you do make these I'd recommend going for 10 pies cause then you have one more to eat.
How do you like that math?!?!