Peanut Butter Pie - short, dark and rich

Recently, I’ve gone through a phase of cooking from older issues of magazines. The March 2009 issue of delicious is a case in point, and it’s surprising when you look at a recipe afresh – what seemed ordinary just 12 months ago now becomes a must-make-now kind of dish.

And so we come to this Peanut Butter Pie. It’s from Maggie Beer, so I thought it would be a comforting, old-fashioned type of dessert. It is that, and more. It wasn’t till after I’d made the pie that I looked it up on the internet and realised that it is an American favourite. With peanut butter, cream cheese and graham crackers, what else could it be? There are even versions that have it smothered in Cool Whip....

I have to say, though, that this peanut butter pie is best made when you have a few guests – there is no way you could have more than one slice of the pie at a time, it’s that rich. For the filling, I used salted peanut butter because that's all that the supermarket had - it gave the filling an unusual salty taste.  Further, the pie is not very sweet, which somehow makes it even more rich and just a bit cloying.  Try alleviating this with some vanilla ice cream - it makes it much better!

Peanut Butter Pie
serves 16

the crust
180g digestive biscuits (I used 16 Nice biscuits)
90g unsalted butter, melted
3 tsp caster sugar

the filling
1 cup (250ml) pure (thin) cream
1/2 cup (75g) caster sugar
320g cream cheese, chopped, at room temperature
375g crunchy salt-free peanut butter

the topping
150ml thickened cream
150g dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa), chopped
20g unsalted butter

Method
1.  Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2.  Process biscuits in a food processor until crumbled.  Add sugar and melted butter and pulse to combine, then press into the base of a 22cm springform cake pan.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Set aside to cool.
3.  For the filling, place the cream and sugar in a saucepan and simmer over low heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring until the sugar dissolves. 
4.  Blend the cream cheese and peanut butter in food processor until combined.  Add the cream mixture and pulse to combine (or mix in by hand).  Spoon the filling on top of the pie crust and leave to cool.
5.  For the topping, bring the cream to just below boiling point in a saucepan over high heat.  Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl, then pour over the hot cream.  Leave for 3 minutes without touching. Then gently stir to melt the chocolate and butter into the cream.  Pour the topping over the pie.
6.  Chill the pie in the fridge, uncovered, for 4 hours or longer.
7.  Dust with cocoa before serving very thin slices.

Recipe adapted from delicious (March 2009)

The 3 stages of the crust: crumbs in the cake pan, crumbs smoothed out, crust after baking. I actually left out the sugar in the crust because the Nice biscuits already have sugar on them.
 

The 3 stages of the filling: peanut butter and cream cheese in food processor, cream and sugar on the simmer, filling poured onto the crust.
 

The 3 stages of the topping: hot cream poured onto butter and dark chocolate, it's all combined, topping poured onto the filling.
 

Yes, a small slice would be good.  Hint: A scoop of ice cream (vanilla or butterscotch) really brings out the flavours and lightens the experience.