Last weekend in Philly it was way, way too hot to turn the oven on, but we still wanted to make something good. My friend Matt had a recipe for peanut butter pie that just required freezing, refrigerating, and a little bit of microwaving. Perfect!

Make the crust by crushing chocolate graham crackers to get 1 1/2 cups of crumbs. That took pretty exactly one package (the plastic packages inside the box, not the whole box!) for us.

Crushing things is always pretty satisfying!

Combine the crumbs with the melted butter and sugar and stir to combine, and then press into the bottom of a 10″ pie pan. I think maybe our pie pan was 9″, so we just put the extra in a small tart dish.

Freeze the crust for 20 minutes while thinking about how lovely it is not to be using the oven.

For the filling, beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar and vanilla together until smooth. In a separate bowl beat the cream until stiff peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture in two batches.

Folding ever so delicately.

Making something wonderful!

Spread the mixture in the pie crust.

Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pie, smoothing and covering it, and refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours.

Oh hay, unfortunately changed white balance setting!

Towards the end of the four hours, you can be in the mood to make a chocolate glaze (I’ll put the directions in the recipe below), OR, you can be dead tired and just really want dessert, a shower, and sleep. As we fell firmly into the second camp, we just sprinkled on chocolate chips. It was still really good!

I taste so good!

Yay for visiting friends and making tasty things!

Peanut Butter Pie

Adapted from the Joy of Cooking.

Crust:

• 1 1/2 cup chocolate graham cracker crumbs
• 1/8 cup sugar (just use your 1/4 cup measure and estimate)
• 6 tablespoons melted butter

Filling:

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup peanut butter, chunky or smooth
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup heavy cream, cold

Glaze:

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Mix together crust ingredients and press evenly into the bottom of a 10″ pie dish. Freeze 20 minutes.

Beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar and vanilla together until smooth. In a separate bowl beat the cream until stiff peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture by halves.

Spread filling into crust and cover with plastic wrap, pressing onto surface of filling. Refrigerate until firm, approximately 4 hours.

Bring the cream and butter to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate. Let cool to lukewarm, then pour the glaze over the pie and spread evenly. (Or skip this paragraph and top with sprinkled chocolate chips!)