The 2010 Pi Day Pie Bake-Off Heats Up

Either we set our oven temperature too high or the competition is heating up here in the 2010 Pi Day Pie Bake-Off.

Yesterday we posted Annie Wang's Archi-meaty pie, Leigh's Rabbiteye Blueberry Pie, and Stephanie's "Grown-Up" S'mores Pie with Guinness, and ScienceBloggers James Hrynyshyn and Pamela Ronald posted their own Strawbarb and Swiss chard-Gruyere pies, respectively.

Today we bring you three more: Mareena Wright's Cauchy's Coconut Cream Condensation Test Pie, Zinjanthropus's USO and Banana Pie with Anthropoid Bread Crust, and Nathan Lau's Chocolate Haupia Pie. We're starting to wish Pi Day came around more than once a year.

Mareena Wright, an avid reader of Casaubon's Book, made a coconut cream pie inspired by the Cauchy condensation test. Growing up, coconut cream pies were the standard unit of currency for bet-placing in my house, so all I have to say is, YUM.

Next up is Zinjanthropus's USO and Banana Pie with Anthropoid Bread Crust. Zinjanthropus studies (and blogs about) human and primate evolution, so it is fitting that this pie takes its inspiration from the foraging habits of early hominids. Zinjanthropus's post is seriously worth a read, but basically, the pie combines sweet potato and banana in an "anthropoid bread" crust (anthropoid bread is, obviously, a relative of monkey bread). Speaking as an extant primate, I think those foragers were onto something.

And last we have Nathan Lau's Chocolate Haupia pie. Haupia is a Hawaiian coconut-based dessert, somewhat like pudding. The haupia in this pie is combined with chocolate, which seems like a pretty reasonable way to make something even more delicious than it already sounds. It all gets poured into a macadamia-nut crust, as Nathan helpfully demonstrates with photos on his blog House of Annie.

Don't mind if we do...