Peanut Butter Pie - Week #6

As mentioned in last week's post, our family friend Melanie asked for (demanded?) a Peanut Butter Cup pie.  Since she was in town this past weekend for some Mall Of America fun and games, this was her week.  Incidentally, while she may claim to have driven up from Iowa to visit her oldest and dearest friend -- and to go shopping, deep down we all know she was really here for the pie.  

I was on a bit of a tight time schedule for pie #6 this week.  I was in charge of our little monster (13 months old tomorrow) on Saturday while the girls went to the mall to spend heaven-only-knows how much on heaven-only-knows what.  I've stopped asking.  Heck, I've stopped even wondering.  Pies, pies, pies.  It's all I think about.  But, I digress...

I knew that I wanted to get this pie finished on Saturday so that we could eat it for dessert after supper.  I figured if I didn't get it done until evening that we wouldn't be able to eat it until Sunday, they were leaving on Sunday morning, yada, yada, yada.  You get the picture.  I needed to figure out how to get this thing made while babysitting.  This could be a long story, and on many days it would be, but not this Saturday.  The kid took a glorious two hour afternoon nap, and I was able to make the pie with plenty of time to spare. 

I had put aside this recipe as soon as Melanie requested the peanut butter cup, but the more I looked at it, I just didn't like it.  If I had to point to specific reasons I'd say I was turned off by the use of a spring-form pan, that's a lot of cream cheese, and I really thought the entire crust should be chocolate, and not just have a thin layer of chocolate.  So, I did some additional research and eventually found the Cupcake RN's recipe.  Of course, she seems compelled as an RN to ruin a perfectly good artery hardening recipe by using all kinds of no-sugar and low-fat ingredients.  I ignored all of the foolishness and just used the hard stuff.  No cutting corners for me!

I modified the crust recipe a little bit, basing it a little bit more on the graham cracker crust I made for the Key Lime pie a couple of weeks ago.  Specifically, I added some additional sugar.  I also didn't use crushed Oreo's, but used regular chocolate wafers instead.  Finally, I baked the crust a little bit longer than was suggested; I don't have a great reason why, I just thought it needed it and so I put it back in for an extra 2-3 minutes.  The things that I definitely did a better job with for this crust were:

  1) I had a great rolling pin to use for crushing the cookies.  I was much more diligent about crushing them into a pretty fine powder, and

  2) I smashed the crumb mixture into the pan a lot harder than I did the first time, which helped the crust to stick together a lot better.  Last time I used a glass to press the crust down.  This time I used only my hands (yes, I washed them first).  I think that in the future I'll use some combination.

The filling for this pie was reasonably simple to make.  There were a few things that I wasn't completely sure about, but I think that as long as you ended up with the ingredients combined in roughly the appropriate proportions it would turn out fine.  I did think that it was getting really thick and gooey as I started adding the dry ingredients like the pudding mix and gelatin, but once I piled in all of the Cool-Whip, all seemed well.

I did note in the recipe that the author said that she'd recommend drizzling the chocolate on top instead of spreading it around.  I tried that, but it looked like a piece of abstract art created by a poorly coordinated 2-year-old (not at all dissimilar from any other art I've ever tried to create), so I ended up spreading it as evenly as possible over the top, just as she had.  I made a point of cutting slowly and used a serrated blade knife, sawing through the top layer when cutting pieces.  It seemed to work out okay.  

Here's a picture of the finished product.

And a picture of just how happy a good slice of pie can make someone...

I looked at all of the pictures on the camera from this weekend. In none of them is there any evidence that Melanie got nearly as much enjoyment from a non-pie experience. My conclusion: Pie is good.  This project was a good idea, even if only for this week.  And, I'm still having a really good time.

Other notable happenings from week 6...

I was not so subtly informed that if I ignore the will of the people (i.e. the poll results) one more time (e.g. the rolling pin) that I'd be losing a "follower."  I can only respond that I refuse to be intimidated and won't be bullied.  Go ahead and try to throw your influence around, but I won't back down!  You know who you are.

I found this abomination by accident over the weekend.  I won't admit to having read much, but this blogger is obviously deranged and went back in time having stolen the idea for her blog from someone far more inventive.

I'm still totally on the pie crust R&D mission.  I've done quite a bit more reading, and think I've got a good handle on the chemistry and the hows and whys of crust making.  I can't wait to try some of it out this week.  So, obviously I have to pick a pie with a pastry crust this week.  I'm planning to go with something with a double crust, if possible, too.  After a couple of weeks of really sweet pies, this would have been a good week for a nice savory meat pie.  But, that's already been shot down and I'd be taking my life into my hands if I were to defy the masses again.  Stay tuned for the pie announcement tomorrow night.

I'm struggling to come up with poll questions.  If anyone has any good ideas, let me know.

Until next time, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

(bonus points to whoever can identify the origins of that quote)