Happy Pi Day!

“The history of pi is a quaint little mirror of the history of man.”  - Petr Beckmann

In case you weren’t aware, today just happens to be Pi Day! So we thought that we would devote this week’s blog post to that very irrational holiday…which also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday.

For those of you who don’t know, π (pi) is a mathematical constant which represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It is an irrational number which means that it cannot be represented as a fraction (although 22/7 is often used as an approximation), and has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point. π = 3.1415926…

Since the first digits of pi are 3.14, March 14^th (3/14) is considered Pi Day.

The first major celebration of Pi Day was in 1988 and was organised by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Part of the festivities included marching around in a circle and eating pies (although not necessarily at the same time). Two of the most common ways of celebrating Pi Day are eating pie and throwing pies. In one of my Math classes I had a teacher bring in cookies for everyone shaped like pi. If you want to be very precise, then you can eat your pie at 1:59am so that you’re having pie at 3/14 1:59 (3.14159…). Next year, 2015, will give Pi Day even more significance as it will be 3/14/15; and if you want to be really hard core, next year eat your pie at 9:26:53 as at that time the first 10 digits of π will be represented!

I need to find some pie to eat…and just in case you don’t have any pie to eat, Samantha is kindly sharing one of her favourite pie recipes. It will have you going in circles looking for more…

Enjoy you pi!

- Nicole

In honor of Pie Day, I’m going to share with you my Banana Cream Pie recipe; it’s a family favourite, so enjoy!

Samantha

Banana Cream Pie

You will need:

1/3 cup flour

2/3 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

2 cup milk

1 tsp. butter

1 ½ tsp. vanilla

2-3 bananas

Whipping Cream

Pie Crust 

To make:

Combine the flour, sugar, yolks, and milk in a large pot. Cook and stir until boiling. Once boiling, boil for one minute. Add butter and vanilla and stir. Once this mixture is done allow it to cool just a bit. 

While the mixture is cooling, layer the bottom of a prepared pie crust with banana slices. Pour half of the custard mixture over the first layer of bananas and then add another layer of banana slices and add the remaining custard. Top the pie with freshly whipped cream and maybe some chocolate shavings or sprinkle with cinnamon, whatever floats your boat!