Peanut Butter Pie

My friend, Kristina, knows how much I like peanut butter. And, being a stay-at-home-mom, has also gotten into finding and collecting good recipes. She recently shared this peanut butter pie recipe with me. I made it for a parish potluck because I knew that I would devour the whole thing if I made it for something small (or for just me and Will)!

Peanut Butter Pie
1/3 cup peanut butter
4 oz. cream cheese at room temperature
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
8 oz. Cool Whip thawed
8 in. crumb pie crust (she suggests Oreo)

Process
Blend together the first four ingredients until smooth.  Gently fold in the Cool Whip. Pour into the prepared pie crust and put in freezer until set.  Can be served frozen or thawed.  Keep refrigerated.  To make richer add a layer of chocolate pudding below the peanut butter cream or some chocolate sauce on top or both.




When I made this I was in a bit of a rush since I didn't go to the store for the ingredients until the afternoon when I needed to make it, so this made it a bit more challenging. I think I didn't give the cream cheese quite enough time to get to room temperature, but I didn't feel comfortable zapping it in the microwave. Even with the cream cheese a little firmer than ideal I still think the pie turned out ok.

peanut butter + cream cheese + powdered sugar + milk

I put all of the first 4 ingredients in the bowl at once. This made the mixing a little messy. Next time I think I'll add the first 3 ingredients and blend, then slowly add the milk while continuing to blend.

blended ingredients

As you can see, it still turned out ok, but the mixture isn't as smooth as I would have liked (I think because the cream cheese was a little too firm to begin with).

Peanut Butter Pie

The final pie turned out really well. I opted to add a layer of chocolate pudding to the bottom, but I forgot to take any pictures of that.
I think it's important to note that you should allow several hours for the pie to set in the freezer. I only allowed a little over 2 hours and it wasn't quite set when it was served. But it still tasted great!