Pi Day Italian style! What says Pi better than a nice, warm, cheesy, vegetable laden pizza Pi?...one with crusty knots circling around telling the tale of Pi!

Step 1: Ingredients

Mangiar bene a te!
(Good eating to you!)
The ingredients make the Pi a Pi
You may use what you wish - we like ours with an Italian flair and so our list of ingredients is:
mushrooms
pepperoni
red and green peppers
olives (pitted are best)
basil for a last minute flourish
mozzarella cheese
onion
red sauce
dough - homemade or store bought

Step 2: Dough

Preheat oven to 425' and spray the pan with cooking spray or line with parchment paper to avoid sticking
Find a compadre and stretch your dough out to fit the pan. We like our Pi to be round -
Precook the dough for 4 minutes at 425
Take out of the oven

Step 3: Toppings Prep

While your Pi bakes, start assembling the ingredients
While everyone has favorite toppings, we like ours with an Italian flair
For an Italian Pi:
chop one onion
wash and slice mushrooms
pour two tablespoons of olive oil in a small frying pan, add onion and mushroom, saute together, with a pinch of cracked black pepper, until onion is golden and mushrooms are starting to brown
wash and thinly slice peppers
slice pepperoni
grate the mozzarella

Step 4: Toppings

Once your Pi has prebaked, remove from oven and spoon on the desired amount of sauce
Now - throw on the amount of cheese that makes you say "Buono!"
Slather on the sauce to amount desired and then comes the Pi fun!
We made our numbers out of the veggies and meat -
We began with a "3" made out of the peppers - they slice into a "3" so naturally
next comes a "." out of a mushroom, "1" another pepper slice
"4" out of olives - they hold their shape so well
"1" out of mushroom
"5" out of pepperoni
"9" out of mozzarella and so on...until you have a full Pi
Don't forget the olive Pi symbol in the middle that lets everyone know you've made an Italian Pi!

Place finished Pi in preheated 425' oven for 10- 15 minutes, depending on your oven.
Check after the first 10 minutes -

Step 5: Knots!

Next comes the finishing touch - the pretzel knots that spell out in clear letters what your Italian pie is all about - Pi!
You will need dough - homemade or store bought
Form the dough into a ball
Roll into a log and use a knife to cut into equally segmented sections
The size will depend on how big you would like your numbers to be
We made about 10 cuts in our roll
To make Pi:
make 3 slightly larger cuts and then further subdivide each of those three balls into 3 smaller balls
Roll each ball into a log
For each Pi: lay one log horizontally, then attach the remaining two logs lengthwise
For the numbers: take each remaining log from the roll and form into the numbers comprising Pi
Lay the finished numbers on a sheet covered in parchment or a silpat baking sheet

Step 6:

For Italian flavor -
Brush each Pi with olive oil and then drizzle with garlic salt or cheese
then bake in 425' oven for 5 - 10 minutes
Ovens will vary so check in after the first 5 minutes

Step 7: Enjoy!

Pizze Pi Piede Delizioso!!!!!
Enjoy the whole circumference...

Participated in the
Pi Day Pie Challenge

9 Comments

SpagoPizza

11 years ago on Introduction

Good luck with the contest. I think the tomato sauce should not get so close to the border, leave some more space so the border colour is clearly visible.

mistyp

It looks very tasty! Thank you for sharing and good luck on the contest!

Spio

Try this:
for the tomato sauce, take 5 or 6 tomatoes than long ones (not the big ones or small, round salad).

Put them in a pot and bring to the boll. Wait 15 minutes, half an hour, until they lose their skin.

Turn off heat and remove the tomatoes from water, place them in a blender ... and blend.

After blending it all, put the tomato sauce in a glass jar, add a leaf of basil, and close it tightly.

Make sure the jarr will not open and put it back into the water to boil for another 30 minutes. Careful not to blow it up.

Wait for it to cool without opening the jar.

Now you have the tomato sauce as God commands or at least as an Italian from Naples :)

Before you put on pizza, pour into a pan or dish and add salt (how much is enough) and a drizzle of olive oil.

Do not add all the seasonings, just try it with real mozzarella, a little olive oil and some basil. At best, add the pepperoni.

Or tomato sauce, oregano and black olives.

The ingredients: mozzarella, basil, etc., should be put on the pizza dough raw. And then everything must be put in the oven at 200-220 °.

For the dough I do not know how to help, it is quite difficult, but at least you get something that gets closest to a pizza. Use the oven, it is better ventilated, at 220 ° until the pizza is not cooked. Put the pizza in the middle of the oven.

This is all I know how to make a pizza. I have attached the photo of the tomatoes that you use. And i'm sorry for my english :)