Pi Day

I know, I have to jump on any cute bandwagon and how could I not start a new tradition of making (and eating) pie on Pi day. This morning I hurried and got the dough and vanilla pudding made for a banana cream pie. I really like the taste of a whole wheat crust and looked for a recipe that I could use a little less butter and thought yogurt may be a substitute. I looked in Rosie's pie and pastry bible for a crust using yogurt and she actually had one. The amount of butter was the same and the yogurt replaced the water and vinegar. I still cut down a little on the butter. I think I should have put in more yogurt from the beginning and ended up over-mixing it. The flavor was good, but it was a little hard, not flaky. I also used beans for the first time to keep the crust from puffing up. Rosie suggested using a coffee filter to hold the beans and that worked very well. Some of the butter soaked into the filter though.

melted chocolate covering bottom of the crust

I made the crust while dinner was baking and the crust didn't have proper time to cool before being filled. I do believe when baking is rushed, a price is paid. The price paid for this one was a runny filling, since I threw the ingredients into a pot, ten minutes before having to leave for the bus stop. I didn't even measure the cornstarch and now realize I should have used more. However, it was really yummy - put a layer of melted chocolate on the crust to keep it crunchy, drizzled lemon juice on the bananas so they wouldn't turn brown, and the crust design turned out very pretty, I think. 

Shara even liked it. At first she was very skeptical about not having a chocolate base for the bananas, but when she smelled the vanilla pudding, she realized it was the right choice. She ate her whole piece.