I’m a nerd.

When your dad is a rocket scientist and your mom is an educator, it’s kind of hard not to be. I love learning. I always have. Even when I pretended to look cool, like during my years as a cheerleader, there was always an ulterior motive. In this case, cheerleading was a way to plump out my high school resumé and I could use game half times to be the nerd in the back corner of the bleachers doing my calculus and physics homework. The nerdiness could not (and thankfully has not) escaped me.

And so Pi Day is celebrated in my world. It comes every year on March 14. 3.14. Pi is merely a mathematical constant and will always be 3.14159265359. It is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. And you need it to find the area of a circle (A=πr^2) or anything regarding the size of a circle. It’s an irrational number that causes you to do irrational things, like make baby hand pies just because it’s Wednesday you need a reason to procrastinate.

And believe me, you need all the baby hand pies you can get to survive college calculus and stats. You need pie as much as pi needs you.

Upon returning home from the Indianish cookbook shoot with Mackenzie, I had a my own shoot I had to do for Molly Yeh’s Short Stack Edition, “Yogurt.” For that, I needed to make her Grapefruit-Olive Oil Yogurt Loaf, so I had a lot of leftover ruby reds and yogurt. Since grapefruit season is about up, a curd was calling my name. Adding complementary flavors of campari and rosemary created a delightfully subtle bittersweet filling. I tucked it into Judy Kim’s vodka pâte brisée dough and coated with a Greek yogurt glaze inspired by Molly Yeh. World, meet these semi-sweet and tart baby hand pie to help you grasp the one-million-plus numbers of pi.  

Ruby Red Grapefruit, Campari and Rosemary Hand Pies

Hand Pie Ingredients

Filling

• 2 large ruby red grapefruits, zested and juiced

  • Reserve 1 cup of juice for curd

  • Reserve 1 teaspoon of zest for the glaze

• ⅔ cup sugar

• 1 sprig rosemary, about 4 inches long

  • Leaves removed, not chopped

• 3 eggs

• 4 egg yolks

  • Reserve leftover egg whites for egg wash

• 2 ounces Campari

• 4 tablespoon butter, cut into ½ inch cubes

Greek Yogurt Glaze

• 2-3 tablespoons of whole milk Greek yogurt

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 tsp rosemary simple syrup

  • ½ cup water

  • ½ cup sugar

  • 2 sprigs of rosemary

• 1 tsp of Grapefruit zest

• A handful of rosemary leaves for garnishing

Hand Pie Directions

Preheat oven to 350F.

Zest both grapefruits into a small bowl. Cut them in half and juice them. Reserve 1 cup of the juice.

Add the rosemary leaves of one sprig to the zest. Add sugar. Massage to release the oils into the sugar, until the texture resembles wet sand and is fragrant, about 1 minute.

Using a double boiler, simmering over medium heat, whisk together the sugar mixture, eggs, and egg yolks. Once incorporated, add 1 cup of grapefruit juice and 2 oz of campari.

Whisk constantly until the mixture resembles the consistency of sour cream, about 10-12 minutes.

Remove from the heat and melt in 1 cube of butter at a time.

When all the butter is added, pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Cool in the refrigerator while you prepare your dough.

While your dough chills, prepare your rosemary simple syrup and Greek yogurt glaze.

In a small saucepan, combine 2 rosemary sprigs, ½ cup of sugar and ½ cup of water. Bring to a boil and stirring until sugar dissolves completely, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and let cool for 30 minutes.

Whisk together 2 tablespoons of greek yogurt with 1 cup of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon of rosemary simple syrup. If mixture is too thick, add more yogurt in small quantities. If mixture is too thin, add more powdered sugar in small quantities. Cover and set aside.

Prepare your dough. Roll out to about ⅛ of an inch. Using a biscuit cutter, cup, or bowl, cut circles, about 3 inches in diameter.

Place 1 ½ teaspoons of curd in center of 1 dough circle. Brush edges with egg white wash. Place another dough circle on top. Use fork tines to poke in air holes. Pinch edges together, then crimp with a fork to ensure a tight seal.

Bake for about 30, or until golden on top.

Cool completely, about 30 minutes. Top each hand pie with Greek yogurt glaze and garnish with a couple rosemary leaves.