I can’t resist a good pun, and let me tell you, Pi Day is an endless source to them, especially in my native language. Plus, we had a ton (not literally) of wrinkly old apples that are only good for baking. Not to mention that I can never say no to a pie. Oh, and there’s an apple pie recipe in Jamie Oliver’s Comfort Food book (the cookbook I'm trying to max out). So… now tell me I didn’t have to bake apple pies. With capital P and I.

This wasn’t my first rodeo - or pie baking. My favorite time of the year to bake them is summer. Because, honestly, is there any better time to bake them than in the heat, next to a hothothot oven? Yes, there’s. Now is the time! So yeah, since I haven’t tried this recipe yet, it was about time.

Now, of course I had to make things harder - I decided to make mini pies in a muffin tin. Let me tell you - it wasn’t entirely a good idea. Even though I greased them and everything, it was still a workout session to take them out of the damn thing. Oh well, who doesn’t love a challenge? Another difference to the original recipe is that I changed the amounts a tiny bit so that I ended up with 15 muffin-shaped pies. Let’s see!

What you’ll need for the filling:

• 7-8 large apples
• half a lemon
• 40g butter
• 70g sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 pinch of nutmeg

How:

1. Peel and core the apples. Chop them up into small cubes.
2. Add the juice of the lemon.
3. In a pot melt together butter and sugar, then add apples.
4. Cook for about 10 minutes, stir it every now and then.
5. Let it cool completely.

What you’ll need for the pastry:

• 250g butter (cold like the weather beyond the Wall)
• 350g flour
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 150ml cold water
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 egg, beaten

How:

1. Slice up the butter into small cubes to make things easier. Put it into the freezer for a while.
2. Mix flour, salt, and sugar together in a bowl, then add the cold butter and mix with a hand mixer until it starts to become crumbly. Then add the water and keep mixing until it becomes a nice dough (use your hands if needed).
3. Halve the dough and make two flattened discs. Cover them in plastic wrap and put them into the fridge for at least an hour.
4. Take them out, and roll them into 3mm thick (thin?) rectangles (one after the other) and cut out rounds by using a glass (or anything that has a diameter of about 10 centimeters).
5. Grease the muffin tin and put a circle into each hole - pat them down.
6. Put about a tablespoon of the filling into each muffin shape.
7. Put the “top” half on the cup, and use your fingers to seal the edges, then brush the tops of the pies with the egg. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, then cut a little “x” on their top, and put the tray into a pre-heated oven for about 50 minutes (or until it reaches the magical state of golden brown color).
8. Let them cool and then get them out - good luck with that. ;)

If you can take them out, then comes the easy part: devour them! They are great by themselves, but if you want to be really fancy, add some vanilla ice cream to make things more piquant. Yes. I did that. Sorry.