Peanut Butter Pie

Today I made a dessert that is near and dear to my heart.  Peanut Butter Pie reminds me of the wonderful years that we spent in Owasso and especially the Friday night dinners with our friends at La Casita.  It’s super easy to make and it’s incredibly delicious too.  Here is all you need.

For the crust:

• 1 1/2 sleeves of graham crackers
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp of melted butter

For the filling:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 – 8 ounce package of cream cheese
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of smooth peanut butter

So first things first.  Go put your heavy cream and mixing bowl in the freezer (it helps the cream whip better).  Go on…it’s OK…I’ll wait.

OK.  So next put the graham crackers in the bowl of a food processor with the regular blade and process until the crumbs are finely ground.  To the bowl add 1/4 cup of sugar and pulse a few times, then pour in the melted butter and process until all the ingredients are incorporated.

Scoop the graham cracker mixture into a 9.5 inch pie dish.  I know it seems like a lot of cracker crumbs, but just keep smoothing them out evenly over the bottom and up the sides with your hands.  Once they are in a more or less even layer, firmly press the crumbs against the dish.

Could you skip this step entirely and just buy a ready-made graham cracker crust?  Well, sure.  But then you wouldn’t have a big mess to clean up and where’s the fun in that?

Once you get your crust just right (you can obsess about his step as much or as little as you would like), place it in the freezer to firm up.  Oh, and go ahead and grab your heavy cream and mixing bowl while you’re at it.

Got it?  Awesome. So now pour all of the cream into your mixing bowl along with 1/4 of sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla.  Starting on the lowest speed (unless you just want little splatters of cream all over your cabinets), gradually increase the speed to high and whip until soft peaks form.  For some reason, I always tend to over whip cream and end up with something more like Styrofoam.  But there’s no need to be an overachiever here – just nice soft peaks will do for this dessert.

Transfer your soft, fluffy whipped cream into a different bowl then switch to the regular mixing attachment of your mixer.  There’s no need to wash your mixing bowl, just add the cream cheese and 1 cup of sugar right in.  Cream them together then add 1 cup of peanut butter and then blend until the mixture is light and fluffy.

A quick here note about peanut butter…this is not the time or place for the all-natural or grind it yourself peanut butter.  Just use plain ol’ creamy peanut butter ( omg I sound just like my mother) because it makes the texture so much better.

Oh, and one more thing…if you feel compelled to spread a little of this dreamy filing onto one of the leftover graham crackers, I promise there will be no judgment from me.  Ahem.

Anyway, next we need to gradually fold in the whipped cream.  I usually start by adding in a little at a time and then gently fold after each addition, reserving about a cup of whipped cream at the end.

The final product should be somewhat homogeneous, but don’t stress if you have some streaks of cream throughout the peanut butter mixture.

Now go grab your prepared crust out of the freezer and pour the entire peanut butter mixture into the dish.  Spread the filling all the way to the edges of the dish and smooth the top a little.

Then take the reserved whipped cream and smooth that over the top as well.

Look at that.  Yummy!

Now comes the hard part…place the pie in the refrigerator and let it chill for at least four hours.

To serve this delicious dessert, I like to drizzle a little chocolate syrup over the top.

For me, this is comfort food in the truest sense of the word.

Enjoy!  Kelly