Celebrate Pi Day with the queen of baking, Martha Stewart! From tangy lemon pie to savory spinach, she’s serving up excellence in every slice. So whether you're here for the math or just the pastry, baking one of her classic pies is the ultimate way to honor 3-14.
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00:00circumference. I don't know. I'm sorry. I froze. Pie D. Today I'm making a traditional
00:08double-crusted cherry pie with a pretty polka dotted crust. The paprizee, it's the
00:13same recipe I've been teaching you for quite a long time, but I'll give you a
00:17refresher course. Two and a half cups all-purpose flour and two sticks of
00:26butter cut into small pieces and make sure it is icy cold. You want a flaky,
00:32buttery, easy to roll crust that is exactly the right texture. One teaspoon
00:39of kosher salt. Now pulse, breaking up the butter into the flour. Now iced water.
00:51About a quarter of a cup will probably do, but make sure you have no ice, just
00:58iced water. It'll make a wet spot and when you try to roll it, it'll just be a
01:02hole basically. So as you're pulsing, add drop by drop of water and you'll need,
01:09depending on the humidity and your flour, anywhere from a quarter of a cup to
01:16sometimes even a half a cup. That was a third of a cup of water. And have your
01:21plastic wrap ready. Take out half the dough and just put it right on your
01:28plastic wrap. And I use the plastic wrap to form the disc. And you can just
01:36flatten it like this. And your second disc of dough. So chill these. For the
01:42filling, two pounds of fresh tart cherries that have already been pitted.
01:47Into the cherries, put a quarter of a cup of cornstarch. Cornstarch will help
01:53thicken the baking juices and really make for a perfect pie. And a half a
01:58teaspoon of vanilla. And if you prefer, you could use a little bit of fresh
02:04lemon juice. And one cup of sugar to two pounds of pitted cherries. And then stir
02:13with a spatula. Doesn't that look good? And now as far as rolling out the crust,
02:21bench flour your rolling surface. Have a nine-inch glass pie plate at the ready.
02:29Roll this larger than the pie plate. A well-made pot brisee. It's always such a
02:38relief when it rolls out like this and doesn't crack and doesn't break. And it's
02:45just perfect. Roll up your crust. And roll out your crust. Okay, so here we have a
02:56crust that's still nice and cool. Put your cherries right into it. Mmm, so
03:05beautiful. And they smell extraordinary. So this butter, two tablespoons, it gives
03:16an extra richness to the juices of the pie. There. Now you can put that right on
03:24your baking pan lined with parchment because this is probably going to drip.
03:29And you can chill this until you get the top crust ready. And now we're rolling
03:33out our top crust. Again, keep moving it around on your floured surface. And this
03:41should be, again, just slightly larger than nine inches. And for decoration as
03:48well as function, use a little tiny biscuit cutter. And we're going to do, I
03:54think, nine little holes. And now we have to get that right on the pie. So we can
04:01roll this crust again on the pin and then try to center your holes on the top
04:10of the pie. Press the crust all around right on the edge. And I use scissors,
04:20leaving about a half an inch overhang. I love pie crust. So now what I like to do
04:28is roll this under like that. We want to seal the edge so that the juices don't
04:38run out. Now, everybody has a different method for this crimping. Actually, a
04:46spoon works really, really well. You can use any kind of spoon to push like this.
04:52And it makes kind of a nice crimp. Now do a little bit of egg wash for a golden
04:57brown crust. Don't put big globs of egg on the top. Carefully wash it. Doesn't
05:04that look pretty? And this will go into the freezer for 20 minutes. After 20
05:10minutes, put this right in a 375 degree preheated oven. Very important on the
05:16middle rack. Now this pie cooks for a long time, one hour and 45 minutes, until
05:23the juices in that center hole are bubbling. When asked what my favorite pie
05:28is, it's generally lemon meringue pie. It's always been one of my favorites, but
05:32I recently tasted a version that had me looking at traditional lemon meringue
05:37pies from a new angle, upside down. Let me show you what I mean. It's a simple pie
05:43to make. You need four egg whites in the bowl of your mixer, because this is going
05:49to be the meringue. And you need eight egg yolks for the lemon curd. So you
05:55start beating this with one tablespoon of water, which helps break up the
06:00albumen. And in the meringue, add a quarter of a teaspoon of cream of
06:06tartar. And once the egg whites become soft peaks, start adding one cup of
06:13granular sugar, slowly. Now gradually add the sugar.
06:21So very beautiful meringue. So this gets smoothed into the buttered pie plate, up
06:36the sides, and just onto the rim. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees, and you're
06:44going to bake this for 40 minutes. Turn off the oven and allow the crust to
06:51stay in there for another hour. This is so pretty. This recipe comes from our
06:57Test Kitchen Recipe Tester's grandmother, Josephine Riege. Put this right into
07:03your oven. So now for the lemon curd, which is the filling of our lemon
07:08meringue upside-down pie. Eight egg yolks. Whisk those until they're yellower, and
07:14gradually add one cup of granulated sugar. And you'll need four teaspoons of
07:23lemon zest. And we need six tablespoons of lemon juice. So you're going to need
07:31approximately one and a half lemons. There. So stir this. Make sure you mix
07:45everything up, and you can then put aside the whisk and use a wooden spoon as you
07:54cook the curd. Now you never, never, never can leave this on the stove by itself.
08:00They will curdle if you cook too hot. Look how quickly it's thickened. This is very
08:06nice lemon curd. Turn off the heat and put the curd in a bowl to cool. And it will
08:13become even thicker than this as it cools. Put a piece of plastic wrap right on the
08:20surface of the curd and let cool in the refrigerator. So now fold one cup of
08:26cream whipped into your lemon curd. So now pour this into your shell. And isn't that a
08:38gorgeous shell? Look how beautiful, light and airy and perfectly cooked. Little bit
08:44of color. So just swirl this and chill. So this beautiful pie has been chilled for
08:55approximately eight hours. Top it with stiffly whipped cream. Just a very fine
09:00dusting of lemon peel. There. You are going to adore the taste of this
09:07extraordinary pie. So that one's for you, and this is all for me. Enjoy. We're going
09:13to be making a delicious spinach pizza with three cheeses. The dough that we
09:18make was inspired by a really fine Italian chef. He has an amazing
09:23restaurant and his pizza is second to none. This is an adaptation of his pizza
09:29recipe. He never gave me the real recipe. We just had to try everything, you know,
09:33tried it about a hundred times before we got something akin to his pizza. So two
09:38cups of warm water, one package of active dry yeast. Let this proof and you can
09:45make the dough right on your counter. Start with three cups of all-purpose
09:50flour. You're going to use five cups altogether and two teaspoons of fine sea
09:56salt. Mix this all together. You can use a whisk if you want or just your fingers,
10:00but try to get the salt throughout the flour. I like this method because it's,
10:04you know, using your hands. It's the artisanal pizza is alive and well
10:10everywhere. Everybody's making it. In my neighborhood here we have a pizza truck
10:15that comes with an oven in the truck. A very nice business for my friend and he
10:20makes pizzas to order right in your own backyard. So you can have him come, serve
10:26at parties. It's so delightful. So here we have our yeast. Let's give it a stir.
10:31Martha, do you prefer to use the dry yeast over the fresh? Well, it's so readily
10:37available and most people can get the dry yeast in the supermarket. You can use
10:41cake yeast, no problem, if you can get it. We can find it here only in bakeries.
10:46Right, right. Remember, I live in the boondocks. So I'm just making my well
10:51with our water and I start by using a fork to go around, sort of like I make my
10:56pasta dough. And then I'll add the rest of the liquid, hopefully without breaking
11:03the well. And this is all only to save time washing a bowl. You can do it in a
11:10bowl very easily. Do you have any tips or advice for somebody who's maybe not so
11:15used to working with bread or yeast? Your yeast should be proofed in water no
11:20hotter than 115 degrees. And yeast is a substance that reacts with the starch or
11:26sugar to form alcohol and carbon dioxide, which gives you the airiness, the rise of
11:33the dough, the ultimate dough. So you want to not kill it by hot water. So here we
11:39are, almost ready to start the kneading process. What are some of the other
11:44methods you could use to make the pizza dough? Well, the fastest way is in a
11:48stand mixer with a dough hook. We just wanted to do something a little bit fun.
11:52A lot of people don't have a stand mixer and I just want to make the recipes as
11:57accessible and as useful to as large an audience as possible. When people ask me
12:02the tools that I must have in the kitchen, I always say a stand mixer, food
12:08processor, a good set of pots and pans, and a good set of knives, and a good
12:14counter to work on. So you see how nice this is becoming? So a lot of people ask
12:20how to knead. I'm using basically the heels of my hands, not my fingers as
12:25much, even though they're completely covered with dough. And I'm pressing,
12:30pulling the top toward me, and then pushing the bottom away. Pulling, pushing.
12:38Is there anything you're looking for texture-wise? Yes, the baby's bottom. I can
12:45feel it becoming elastic. The gluten has to relax, so it's going to rise in an
12:51oiled bowl for about two hours prior to putting it in the refrigerator overnight.
12:56And why do you let it sit in the refrigerator overnight? It's resting. It's
13:01making a finer, more tender dough. And it gives you time to get all your toppings
13:05and fillings ready for your big pizza party that you're gonna have on Friday
13:09night. So now this has rested for two hours at room temperature, and we're
13:15going to cut this into four equal pieces. Just use your bench scraper to do that.
13:20And these will be your crusts. Enough for a sizable croissant, enough for a 12-inch
13:28pizza, or enough for a skillet pizza, which has a little bit thicker crust.
13:35This is a method that I learned making piste au lait, or French boule. And you
13:40just pinch the bottom until you get a nice smooth top, and put that on a
13:44well-floured baking sheet. This is what's going to go into the refrigerator
13:49overnight to rest the gluten, ferment the yeast a little bit, and make a more
13:55flavorful dough. Okay, so here we have our dough. It's looking really good. And this
14:03is what you want to form into your base for your pizza. 12 inches round. I'm
14:09working on a piece of parchment paper. This really simplifies a lot of problems
14:14for people who haven't made pizza before. Because we have a stone in the
14:18oven heating to 550 degrees, that stone is piping hot, and it will cook a pizza
14:25in approximately 10 minutes. So this is very nice. No need to fling the pizza up
14:32into the air unless you are adept and expert. I've had it stick to the ceiling.
14:38So just keep stretching the dough to get to the desired diameter of 12 inches.
14:45Circumference. I don't know. I'm sorry. I froze. Pie D. Okay, beautiful. It's flat and even and
14:56looking good. Now the topping is delicious. We have Gruyere cheese, grated.
15:02Sprinkle that all over your top. Now you can leave about a quarter of an inch
15:07around the edge if you want a nice edge. We also have mozzarella, fresh buffalo
15:14mozzarella. This lovely mozzarella melts beautifully in the oven. The pecorino is
15:22a salty cheese, adding a lot of flavor. And the Gruyere just gets nice and
15:27stringy. And it's also very flavorful. We also have a couple garlic cloves that
15:34are slivered. You can put a garlic sliver here and there. And then I think
15:39we'll do the spinach. These are washed baby spinach leaves, which go on last. And
15:47at the end, we're going to put some mint leaves on. They go so well with the
15:52spinach. And now a sprinkling of black pepper. The sprinkling of red pepper
15:56flakes would be nice too. Some salt and a drizzle of olive oil. This helps the
16:06spinach cook without burning. And this is a peel. This helps a lot to get your
16:13pizza in and out of the oven. So right into the oven. Now take your peel all
16:19the way to the back of the stone and then just gradually slide this off,
16:24positioning it in the middle of the stone. Set your timer for 10 minutes.
16:29It's time to get the pizza out of the oven. It is exactly 10 minutes. That looks
16:38so amazing. Now that looks like it comes from the best restaurant, doesn't it? So
16:46just slide this right off onto your cutting board. Don't use this as a
16:49cutting board. It really needs to stay nice and smooth. And there you have an
16:57amazing pizza. To just add a little more flavor, a few pieces of mint leaf. You'll
17:05like the taste of the mint with the spinach. It is really delicious and it
17:10really does enhance the pizza. Now you can cut with a mezzaluna like this. I
17:18guess I'll make eight pieces. I'll have to practice if I'm going to work in my
17:24own pizza parlor. Serve this piping hot with some pieces of lemon. I just have to
17:33show you underneath. The crust is a beautiful color. Have a piece, guys.
17:40Please help yourselves. Let me know what you think. Pretty good, right? It was
17:47really good. It's delicious. I know it may sound like a strange combination, but
17:53trust me when I show you that my lemon and Italian cheese pizza is outrageously
17:58delectable. The tangy paper-thin slices of citrus pair perfectly with melted
18:03piave and fontina cheeses. The dough is simple, a basic pizza crust dough. We
18:09first proof one package of active dry yeast in two cups of warm water. And the
18:15water should be no warmer than 115 degrees. And we want it to become like
18:24this, dissolved, and you want to see a little bit of action on the top of the
18:27water. Little tiny bubbles. That way you know the yeast is alive. Let this one sit
18:33for about five minutes. In a large bowl, we have three cups of all-purpose flour.
18:38And to that, we're going to add two teaspoons of fine sea salt. Stir that up.
18:45And then you can make a well if you want, or whatever way you're going to
18:49incorporate all this yeasty water into all that flour. It's going to be very,
18:57very wet. And by making a well, you can gradually add the flour, the dry, to the
19:04wet. I'm using a good sturdy wooden spoon to help mix. And because it's so wet,
19:11you're going to add up to two additional cups of flour to this dough. So now you
19:16can start adding the first cup. Just sprinkle it on. You don't have to dump it
19:24all in. Now you can, of course, make this in the stand mixer fitted with a dough
19:30hook. It'll save what my dad always called that elbow grease. But it's kind
19:35of fun to make pizza dough and use your arm muscles. And again, the addition of
19:39the flour, sometimes it'll take all two cups. Sometimes you'll need a little bit
19:44more, depending on the day. And you can put some of the extra flour right here
19:49on your counter. Pull up your sleeves and get ready to knead. And it helps to use a
19:58pastry scraper whenever you're kneading dough. This will lift the dough and allow
20:06you to make those initial folds. And it might take up to 10 minutes to get this
20:11into a nice, smooth ball of dough. And have a large bowl ready with some olive
20:17oil in the bowl. And that will be the rising bowl. Coat the entire surface with
20:23oil and then cover with plastic wrap. And let it rise in a warm place until double
20:30in volume, approximately three hours. So here's our dough, doubled in bulk. And
20:35there's no reason to buy pizza dough. It's so nice to make your own. I make my
20:42own, my daughter makes her own, my niece makes her own beautiful, beautiful dough.
20:48And using your pastry cutter, cut into quarters. What you want to do is just make
20:53this into a nice round. Notice how I'm folding up the edges. You don't want a lot
21:00of air bubbles in your pizza. Flour a baking sheet lightly, cover and let the
21:07dough rise for another 30 minutes. And I think we have a swap out for this one
21:11too. So here's our dough, nicely risen. Take one of the balls. And if it's going
21:17to take you a little time, keep this in the fridge so it doesn't overproof. You
21:21can also put them in the freezer. Oh boy, look at this. So pretty. Just a lightly
21:26floured surface. And you want to push the dough out to a circle about 12 inches
21:32in diameter. You can go around and around like this, using the backs of your hands.
21:39Now put this right on a lightly floured peel. Now, a few little red onions. So a
21:47quarter of a red onion, some Piave cheese. Two ounces of the cheese should be
21:54enough for one pizza. Some thin lemon slices. Six, which will give you six
22:02perfect slices. And some, oh, Fontina cheese. Two ounces will melt perfectly
22:09under the heat that we're going to bake this. 500 degrees and a little bit of
22:14oven broiler. Some little sprigs of rosemary. You don't want a lot of rosemary,
22:20just want a few sprigs here and there. And black pepper. I'm not adding any salt.
22:26The cheese is salty enough. And then a little drizzle of very good olive oil.
22:37Ready for the oven. Now your oven should be preheated to 500 degrees for at least
22:43one hour with your pizza stone on the bottom rack, if that's an electric oven,
22:48or on the floor of a gas oven. Don't overshoot the stone. I start where I want the pizza to
22:54land and I just gently squiggle the peel. Close the oven. So now broil until bubbles
23:01begin to form around the edges. Three to four minutes. And then we are going to
23:06reduce the temperature to oven heat of 500 degrees and bake for another six to
23:12eight minutes. Our time is up. Oh boy. So gorgeous. That is a gorgeous pizza.
23:22Nothing burned. Beautiful crust. Beautiful melted top. And it smells spectacular.
23:32Enjoy the most delicious lemony cheese pizza you will have ever tasted.