I have to admit, I completely forgot about Pi Day this year. But for a very good reason. My mind has been in such a St. Patrick’s Day mood that I’ve only been thinking about baked goods for that holiday. You would think that if there is a fun occasion for baking I would be on top of all of them, but I guess not. At least not when they’re close to March 17th. 🙂
Even though it’s spring break I have a ton of work to do, but this gorgeous weather is teasing me and I can’t help but stare longingly out my windows at the beautiful clear blue sky. Who could blame me?
Spring is certainly on its way. I feel like we almost don’t deserve it because of the extremely mild winter we’ve had. It sort of feels like cheating. Oh well, who am I to turn my nose up at what we’ve been given.
Okay, back to celebrating Pi Day!
As soon as I saw what day it was, I scrambled to find something to bake. A fruit pie wasn’t an option because I don’t have enough fruit for one, nor did I want to consume an entire pie myself. Pizza pie, shepherd’s pie, all savory pies were out because the weather right now just doesn’t warrant comfort foods. Ah ha! I can cheat the system! I don’t have to make a pie at all.
And thus my purple Pi-shaped sugar cookies were born!
I’m not even close to the first person to make these, so cheating doesn’t actually seem so bad. It’s in the shape of Pi, so it totally counts!
This is the first time I’ve ever really tried to make sugar cookies with the intention of flooding them. I’m not usually one to even make sugar cookies in the first place, because I can never find a recipe I really like. I’m super picky about them. In this case, I used The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies from Allrecipes.com. I approve of these ones. Wholeheartedly.
These Pi cookies gave me a chance to break out the tiny piping tips and the couplers I bought back in January and haven’t used yet. I’m a big fan of couplers now, just gonna put that out there.
Not too bad a job, right? I was actually GIDDY when I took these pictures. I am so easily amused by success with baked goods.
This was also the first time I’ve made my own royal icing. I’ve done the gingerbread house thing before, so handling it isn’t new to me, but I’ve never made it from scratch. I used the recipe with egg whites on Joyofbaking.com.
I also got to use the Wilton gel food coloring I got at the same time as the tips. I’m amazed at how little I used and how VIOLET they turned out. The tiny pot is certainly going to last a LONG time. Yay for my wallet!
The only complaint I had about these cookies was that they took FOR. EV. ER. to make. It might have sped the process along if I didn’t have to cut out the cookies with a template, but I can’t complain too much because I love the final product. I ended up cutting/freezing/baking three at a time because that’s how little time it took the dough to come to room temperature and get super sticky.
It was a long process, but I got to learn new things and hone some skills I didn’t know I possessed. In the end it was totally worth it.
Happy Pi Day! I promise I won’t forget next year!
Emerald Thunder 