Jill Can Cook: Frozen Peanut Butter Pie

We spent Christmas day bouncing from place to place, party to party. But even with all that traveling and visiting, we still weren't done with the festivities. There was one more party to go to, for Joe's dad's side of the family. They always put on a great party with lots of yummy food.

 

A couple of months ago, Joe and I were watching one of our favorite shows together, "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives," and one the places the host visited made this very delicious looking Peanut Butter Pie. I knew right then that I wanted to make it and I figured it would be perfect for this particular Christmas party. I used this recipe HERE.

 

Frozen Peanut Butter Pie

You know, I go to Hannaford's more than Market Basket, but you'd never tell from these pictures!

 

 

Ingredients:

Oreo Cookie Crust

• 21-24  Oreos
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) light butter, melted

Filling

• 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 8 oz reduced fat cream cheese, softened
• 8 oz fat-free thawed whipped topping
• 1/4 cup chocolate syrup
• 1 cup crushed Reese's Pieces, divided

Directions:

• First, make the Oreo cookie crust by crushing the Oreos into a fine crumb (use food processor, blender, or smash in bag). Using your hands, mix the crushed Oreo crumbs and melted butter together. It may look like there is not enough butter, but it will come together. Place into a 9 or 10 inch pie pan, pressing the crumbs onto the bottom and up the sides as much as it will fit. Try to make the crust 1/8 inch thick all around. It does not have to be perfect, though. Set in the freezer as you make the filling.
• Prepare the pie filling in a large bowl by mixing the peanut butter, sugar, cream cheese, and milk, with electric mixer or wooden spoon. Mix until the mixture is completely smooth. Gently fold in the whipped topping.
• Remove pie crust from the freezer and layer 1/2 of the pie filling onto the crust. Sprinkle with 1/2 of the crushed Reese's Pieces. Layer with the rest of the pie filling, swirling to make it completely smooth on top. Top with chocolate syrup and remaining Reese's Pieces.
• Freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight. 20 minutes before serving, remove from the freezer and let sit out to gently thaw. This made the pie much easier to cut.
• *Feel free to use any candy topping of your choice. Peanut butter cups, crushed cookies, candy bars, coconut, chocolate chips, etc. Layer with caramel sauce, use a graham cracker crust, or use less or more sugar depending on your taste. This is a highly adaptable pie.

 

As per usual with stuff I make for parties, I put it off until the last minute and made it the morning of the party. I know, I have a bad case of the "procrastinations." I was only slightly rushed. Luckily, Joe was around to pick up the slack!

 

Crushing the Oreos for the "crust."

 

It was brought to my attention, after I showed pictures of myself crushing pecans with a pan, that it would be easier to crush stuff with a rolling pin. Thank you, culinary student friend of mine. That advice was super helpful this time around!

 

Not a very good picture, but this is what the "crust" ended up looking like.

The smell of crushed Oreos is like 1,000 times stronger than regular, uncrushed Oreos. Good thing the recipe didn't call for the entire package of cookies!

 

Me, getting ready to make the pie filling.

 

Joe was walking by me while I was making the filling and decided to take a picture of me "cooking," ya know, for my blog. I think he just wanted an excuse to linger long enough to steal some Oreos!

 

The filling, before I folded in the whipped cream.

 

I'm getting a lot of use out of my mom's old 1970's bowl. It works really well with my $10 hand mixer.

 

The first layer of pie filling!! Oh my goodness it already smelled great.

 

Crushing up the Reese's Pieces with my handy rolling pin.

 

These candies were not as easy to crush as the cookies, but I was glad for the mini-workout.

 

The finished product.

 

I decided that I could leave some of the Reese's Pieces whole, so that other people would be able to easily guess what kind of pie this was without me or Joe letting them know.

 

Don't you just want to reach through the computer and grab a slice?!

I had made this pie the morning we were going to serve it and we spent most of that time driving to the party, so we weren't able to keep it in the freezer for any length of time. Instead of the "frozen" pie we were hoping for, we ended up with a chilled pie. It didn't change the flavor. The major problem with not freezing it, though, was that the first few cuts of the pie came out looking more like mush than a slice of pie. Again, no one cared as it didn't change the flavor, but I was thinking I'd get skunked on a picture of the cut product for you guys!

 

Not perfect, but not entirely off either.

 

I don't know if I don't have much of a sweet tooth or if I'm just overly critical of my cooking skills sometimes, but I thought the pie was a tad too sweet. Maybe serving it frozen would've made it seem less sweet, who knows. Everyone that had a piece complimented me on it and a few people said they preferred the texture, go figure. No one thought it was too sweet at all. And the entire pie was eaten. So, really I have no complaints about the pie. None at all!!!

 

And that's my first post of the year!! A post relating to the last holiday of the season and I can honestly say, I'm kind of looking forward to everything going back to normal. I am looking forward to the house being "holiday decoration" free, having more time with Joe/our kids and less time spent hopping from party to party, and just overall having less stuff to remember to do!

 

I hope everyone had a happy New Year!! I hope this year brings blessings for you and your family. I also hope that if you're the type to make a resolution, that you're able to follow through with it!! I would normally make a resolution myself, but I made mine in September when I started this blog!!