Happy Pi Day! I haven't baked anything myself, but I helped out on making chicken pot pie and a mint chocolate chip ice cream pie for lunch today - yum, yum!

@GracePevensie15, is it just the crust giving you trouble on the pies or the fillings too? If it's both, I would suggest trying to work on one at a time - maybe the filling first? On the crust side, my family isn't huge on pie crusts, so we usually use a pat-in-a-pan recipe that doesn't require rolling out. Depending on the filling recipe, a crumb crust (premade or home-made) might also be a good option. Not sure if this helps, but if you have specific questions, feel free to ask.

@valiantarcher Typically I have the most trouble with the crust, so I’ll have to try making a crumb crust next time; that’s a good idea! Thanks!  

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Happy Pi Day! I haven't baked anything myself, but I helped out on making chicken pot pie and a mint chocolate chip ice cream pie for lunch today - yum, yum!

Mmmmmmm... mind if I come round and help with any leftovers??  I love chicken, as well as almost anything with mint and chocolate.

We did a combination Pi Day/birthday celebration for my brother-in-law yesterday (which works out because he prefers pie to cake anyways). We ended up making three pies: pumpkin (certain members of my family don't really like any other kind 😛 ), lemon meringue, and an apple/blackberry pie I got from a cookbook I got for Christmas. I think the apple/blackberry pie needs more flavor if I'm going to make it again, but the lemon meringue turned out beautifully. 😀

Posted by: @courtenay

But meanwhile, can't we have an excuse to eat pie even more than once a year?? (I'm about to have chicken and mushroom pie for lunch.)

Speaking as an American, Thanksgiving is another yearly excuse we have to eat pie. Admittedly, mostly sweet/fruit pies. Though I did seriously consider making a savory pie for Pi Day yesterday. (I didn't make the decision soon enough to buy the ingredients in time, though. )

My family loves making cinnamon rolls, and anything interesting we see from the YouTube channel Tasty, will usually be on our list for a future bake.

Currently, I've been trying to make homemade toffee. If anyone has a good, and simple recipe they'd like to share, I'd be happy to hear it. The recipe I've found includes brown sugar, and salt, very simple. The only issue is that I think it will turn out very bland, so I'm looking for a simple yet more tastier one to try.

Also

Posted by: @ryadian

lemon meringue

Yum! I'm going to try making lemon meringue this weekend! The show, Great British Bake-off is very inspiring for future bakes.

Happy baking everyone!

Ooh, so many yummy things to think about! I primarily enjoy making sweets and soups, but usually don't when it's one of my cooking nights (my family divides cooking duties based on schedules).

Since Sunday was Pi Day, I thought I'd share a meat pie recipe for you to try and find for venison pie. It is from the Pennsylvania Trail of History Cookbook (I'm including a link to the Kindle edition), which is a fun read in and of itself. The interesting thing about it is that the pastry only goes on top of the filling, rather than also going underneath. If you decorated it the way the recipe recommends, with leaf shapes on top, it could work for a Narnian feast. (The Giants of Harfang would probably use Talking Deer and turn each pie into an individual one.)

I'm not posting the whole recipe here, as it is rather long, and copyright could be an issue.

Posted by: @courtenay

But meanwhile, can't we have an excuse to eat pie even more than once a year??

I'm ALWAYS up for eating pies. But they're not the easiest thing in the world to make... at least not from scratch.  

I'm always intrigued by the fact that outside of the USA, pies are more of a savory thing. We have savory pies here too, but if you say "pie" people automatically think dessert. 

Posted by: @highkingpete

Yum! I'm going to try making lemon meringue this weekend!

How did it turn out @highkingpete? 
It's funny, I'm not a fan of meringue at all. So I just use homemade whipped cream and donate all of my egg whites to my mom.  

Posted by: @fantasia

I'm always intrigued by the fact that outside of the USA, pies are more of a savory thing. We have savory pies here too, but if you say "pie" people automatically think dessert. 

That's interesting! I do tend to think of "pie" as meaning something savoury unless otherwise specified. Mind you, we quite often have dessert pies too, in both Britain and Australia. The oldest known written recipe for apple pie dates from 1381, in England — and I can vouch that apple pies are still very popular here! And lemon meringue pie, and of course mince pies at Christmas. (Fruit mince, that is, although centuries ago the filling did include meat as well as fruit — and it's still often referred to as "mincemeat" even when it doesn't contain any meat! Do you have mince pies in America as well?)

Apricot pie is a popular dessert in Australia, but I don't think I've ever seen it here. Pumpkin pie is definitely all-American! (I've tried it and I don't mind it, but I prefer apple pie. People in Britain, strangely enough, hardly eat pumpkin at all — in anything, sweet or savoury. I reckon they don't know what they're missing. We love it in Australia.)

@fantasia

I haven't had the chance to make the pie yet, but I'm considering a simple recipe since this will be my first time!

If you have the recipe for the lemon 'whipped cream' pie, I'd love to hear it.

@courtenay

I couldn't agree more! Every Thanksgiving, I'm the only one in support of Apple pie, which I prefer over pumpkin which is a bit bland in my personal opinion.

My first dessert pie was with this recipe this past Thanksgiving. My main struggle with it was getting supplies so that I could make the crust, but one could try it with a pre-made crust. It's extremely rich and chocolately for a pumpkin pie and will send you into a food coma.

Posted by: @highkingpete

I haven't had the chance to make the pie yet, but I'm considering a simple recipe since this will be my first time!

I'm going to be honest with you There is nothing simple about Lemon Meringue Pie. It's a custard pie which involves lots of stirring over high heat and tempering eggs and so on. My recipe come straight out of the good old fashioned Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. 

If you're looking for a good introduction, you might try a Lemon Cream Pie? Here's an example....
https://www.melskitchencafe.com/luscious-lemon-cream-pie/
....and it includes homemade whipped cream, which IS the simplest thing in the world.  

@lu_valient, I've made Chocolate Pumpkin Pie before, and it's okay, but my issue with Pumpkin Pie is the texture rather than the flavor. My favorite Pumpkin Pie is pie made from homegrown pumpkins rather than a can, but that's not simple or fast at all. LOL

@fantasia I tend to buy a baking pumpkin at the beginning of the season, prep it then, and freeze what's left to use throughout the season.

@gracepevensie15, let me know how the crumb crust goes! If you want to practice non-crumb crusts without having to worry about cooking a pie filling, you might try making elephant ears. I haven't had them, but they sound good; the recipes here and here use pre-made pie crust, but I don't think there's any reason you couldn't make one from scratch and practice rolling it out thin enough.

@Courtenay, there were actually some leftovers when I posted, but they didn't last long. I also prefer apple pie to pumpkin pie. But, there's a really good pumpkin custard/pudding my mom occasionally makes - it's got a fluffier texture than pie and is slightly sweeter so you don't need whipped topping or ice cream with it (not that that stops certain family members ).
Mmmm, I've never had apricot pie but it sounds delicious!

@Rya, yum, yum! I'm glad to hear the lemon meringue pie turned out great! What savoury pie were you hoping to make?

@HighKingPete, did you get a chance to make a pie this weekend?

@Lu_valient, the chocolate pumpkin pie sounds good. Besides struggling with the crust, did it turn out well?

@fantasia, that lemon cream pie looks very tempting.

No pies for me this weekend, but I did make two types of muffins: molasses raisin bran and apple malt o' meal. I don't think either will be great favourites but they taste fine, will provide breakfast all week with extras frozen, and used up some ingredients I had, so it's a success overall.

I also tried my hand at Bierock/Bierox (basically, a roll stuffed with cabbage, onions, and beef; it appears to be German in origin). I used tri-colour coleslaw mix instead of cabbage and venison instead of beef. Certainly not authentic, but it tasted pretty good. I had filling ingredients leftover, so I made some dough, added ginger, soy sauce, and extra garlic to the filling, and made up some dumplings to freeze for later. I didn't judge quantities very well, so I still had extra filling leftover when I ran out of dough; it got frozen and will be used for something else in future.

@valiantarcher the pie did turn out well! I'm biased towards chocolate though. I might make one for Easter and let you know how it turns out.

I'm not a big cabbage person, otherwise, I might try that Bierox. What cut of venison did you use?

@Lu_valient, glad that the pie turned out well! Chocolate can improve a lot of desserts. Is pie a customary part of your Easter meal(s)?
 The Bierox recipes called for ground beef, so I used ground venison. If you like the concept, you could try it without the cabbage and see how it turns out! This is the recipe I primarily used, though I used the bread machine to make the dough and didn't measure the filling ingredients properly; I also saw comments from people who added mustard, cheese, relish, and other elements that you would typically put in a hamburger (though, I'm not sure I'd try baking either the lettuce or tomato!).