Peanut Butter Pie!
I get cravings for this pie. And it’s so easy to make. And you can make it and put it in the fridge and it cools down and firms up in less than 3 hours. I’ve already got the craving in the morning, made it, and had a piece for lunch. Mmmmm, now I’m thinking afternoon snack today…
This recipe comes from the Derstine cookbook. But I skip the meringue. Meringue on peanut butter pie?! No way! What’s crazy is that most regular peanut butter pie recipes have meringue. One time I tried it and it just seemed really weird. Maybe because Mom always made it without the meringue. I guess people put it on because the filling takes egg yolks and then what do you do with the eggs whites?
I should actually study up on eggs a bit. When I make something that takes yolks only, I throw away the whites. When I make something with whites only, I throw away the yolks. I do wonder how long yolks or whites would last in the fridge if I’d save them. And I also wonder about freezing them… on that laminated substitution chart that I have (part of it is posted here), for the “when you’re out of eggs” part, one of the substitutions is 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp thawed frozen egg. Probably they would only work in baking or cooking. I’m out of eggs right now and couldn’t even make pancakes this morning! And I can’t even make that peanut butter pie that I’m craving! Oh, hey, speaking of peanut butter pie…
Peanut Butter Pie
1/3 c. peanut butter
3/4 c. powdered sugar
1 9″ baked pastry shell
Filling:
1/3 c. flour
1/2 c. white sugar
2 c. milk (always use whole milk, it turns out much better)
2 tsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
Combine filling ingredients and cook in heavy saucepan over medium heat until thick, stirring often.
Blend peanut butter and powdered sugar. Sprinkle 2/3 of mixture into baked shell. Pour filling on top.
Sprinkle with remaining peanut butter crumbs.
I think I’ll just leave the meringue details off of here because I’m afraid then you’d be tempted to make it with the meringue.
Note of interest: That picture up there where I’m pouring the piping hot filling into the crust was taken at 8:54 a.m. on July 10. And this picture was taken at 11:39 a.m. on July 10. That’s how fast it cools down and sets up!
I won’t clutter this post with it, but sometime I want to feature making a pie crust, how I do it anyway. I’m not a pro and don’t really have secret tips and techniques, but they don’t shrink and they taste fine. I counted up what I can remember and I’ve rolled out about 20 pie crusts in the last 2 months, and enjoyed every minute of it. Most of those pies were for bake sales, we don’t eat THAT much pie! Two of those pies were peanut butter pies, um… not for bake sales. But I did give one of them away. I made one to go with a meal for a new mom and then got home and was feeling like I had slighted myself by not getting to eat any (I could not figure out a way to take a piece without her noticing it, that’s what’s nice about bars… you can bake a panful, put them out on a plate, snitch a few, and the recipient will never know 
). So, anyway, this no-peanut-butter-pie-for-me thing was still bugging me the next day, so I made one for me… the very one that’s featured above.
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Edit: (This will make more sense if you’ve read the comments on this post.) I tried peanut butter pie with Cool Whip…
It was great. It added something to the looks of it. I still prefer the taste of it without the Cool Whip though. I’ll put it on now and then, especially if I’m taking it away somewhere. But if I’m making it to settle a craving for me, it’ll be without. Richer-looking: WITH. Richer-tasting: WITHOUT. That is, of course, just my opinion. 
Silk Chocolate Pie w\ Chocolate Curls
Silk is right. I wonder whoever came up with that term for pie. But it fits this one. Smooth as silk. And creamy and light. Light as in not heavy, not light as in diet. Far from it!
My grandma always said that she likes to make pies better than she likes to eat them. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t like pie! Sometimes while I’m making pie, I wonder if I have reached that same status now. Then, I eat a piece and decide I’m not quite there yet. BUT, this pie may have been an exception. Not that the pie itself was so fun to make. The fun was in the garnishing… chocolate curls.
This recipe is taken from my newest cookbook… Simply with Taste. I got it about a week ago. I love it! Sometime, I’ll tell you more about it and its nice features. This silk chocolate pie is the first recipe I tried from it.
Silk Chocolate Pie
1 pkg. (4 oz) Bakers German sweet chocolate
2 Tbsp. milk
6 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup milk
3 Tbsp. sugar
4 cups whipped topping
2 baked or graham cracker pie crusts
Microwave the chocolate along with the 2 Tbsp milk on high at 20-30 second intervals until chocolate is melted, stirring frequently. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, and 1/4 cup milk until smooth; add the chocolate
and mix until well blended.
Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Fold in the whipped topping.
Spoon into the prepared crusts. May freeze if desired, or use within a day. Top with whipped topping and chocolate curls for garnish.
And now for the fun… How to Make Chocolate Curls
Melt about a 1/2 cup chocolate chips w\ about 1 Tbsp. of shortening.
Spread into a thin layer on the back of a metal cookie sheet.
Put in the freezer for 3 minutes. Take it out of the freezer. Immediately, take a flat tool of some sort (I used my Pampered Chef little square scraper that’s actually for cleaning stoneware, I use that little thing for alot of stuff!) and hold it at about 45 degrees and push down and across the baking sheet. The chocolate should curl right up.
If it just breaks, wait a minute or 2 to let the chocolate soften, then try again. If it doesn’t curl, put it back in the freezer for another minute or so. Depending how long it takes to curl all the chocolate, you may have to put it back in the freezer to harden up again before you’re done. Use a toothpick or utensil of some sort to move the rolls to a plate and put them in the refrigerator. When they’re good and hard again, you can put them in a plastic bag and store in the refrigerator. Or you can just put them on the pies like I did.
Mini Cherry Pies - Cooks in Training #1
Ok, we’re going to have 2 dessert posts in a row. But I’m fine with that… you know the saying, “Life is uncertain, eat dessert first”. And when Lexi tries to talk me into letting her have 2 cookies right before supper and I tell her to wait till after supper because she won’t be hungry and she reasons ‘But if I wait till after, I might not be hungry for the cookies and I’d rather eat the cookies now and not be hungry for the chicken and stuff for supper’, I see her point and actually agree with her. There are very few foods that I like better than cookies. So, yeah, she got that honestly… the willingness to ‘wreck’ a meal by eating dessert first. Which isn’t wrecking the meal at all because the cookies are better than the meal.
In case you’re getting worried, we don’t actaully eat dessert first around here. We just discuss it. I actually don’t usually even make dessert at mealtime because we’re often too full for it anyway. So our cookies and pies and milkshakes and stuff are more often an evening snack for us.
With this post, I’m starting a series called “Cooks in Training”. Guess what that is… anybody have little people in the house? Do our weekly recipe with them. They’ll love it! And you actually will too, just relax and picture the worst case scenario and hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised that it didn’t go too bad. My main job was using a rag before the messes took over my kitchen. Lexi (5) and Tiffany (2) did all the work except for the little bit that I did to show them how to do it. I’m not sure how long this will last as being weekly… hopefully I’m not burned out by the 3rd week!
We were grocery shopping one day and Lexi saw some cute little pre-made graham crusts in a pack of 6. She did a sharp inhale and exclaimed, “Mom, look at these sweet little pies! Can we get them?” They were really cute. And only $1.25 for 6 crusts, so I quite easily gave in. Here is what we ended up doing with them:
Mini Cherry Pies
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups cherry pie filling (or filling of your choice)
1/2 cup chocolate chips, melted
6 Keebler mini ready-made graham cracker crusts
Beat the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla till smooth. Spread on bottom and up sides of each crust.
Between this step and the next step, “Oh! We forgot our aprons. Mom, just wait. We have to go get our aprons. C’mon Tiffany.” Their aprons were made for them by their Great Grandma, the one who makes THE BEST brown sugar pie.
Put about 1/4 cup pie filling on top of cream cheese mixture.
And if any filling would happen to miss the crust and land on the counter, just lick it up. —————————————————————————
Melt chocolate chips and put in plastic bag. Cut off one corner and pipe the chocolate onto the filling.
And, uh, try not to let the bag drop into the pie. That would get cherry filling on the bag and then might get your hand messy.
Chill for an hour or two. Eat. They tasted great!
Desserts just don’t get much better than this…
I’m featuring a fudge sundae pie today that is just tops. One glance at the ingredients and you’ll see why you can’t go wrong here. There are not alot of recipes that each separate ingredient would be good by itself. I am, in fact, eating a piece right now. I’ll be taking a bite every couple sentences. I don’t usually eat at the computer, but I make exceptions now and then.
I remember Mom making this when I was still at home. And I’ve seen this recipe now and then in different cookbooks. The cookbook I used for it this time is Cooking with the Horse and Buggy People. It says the recipes were shared by Amish ladies from Holmes County and Wayne County. So, you readers from there, here you go, a recipe from your neck of the woods…
Fudge Sundae Pie
1/4 cup corn syrup
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
3 Tbsp. oleo (oops, what I said about each ingredient tasting good by itself, I take that back here, forgot about the butter when I said that!)
2 1/2 cups Rice Krispies
Combine syrup, sugar, and oleo and cook over low heat until mixture begins to boil. *Another bite* Man, this stuff is good!!!
Remove from heat and add Rice Krispies. Press evenly in greased pie pan.
Mix:
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup fudge sauce
3 Tbsp. light Karo (I used the same stuff as the corn syrup above)
I actually didn’t know what they meant by fudge sauce, but I thought I couldn’t go wrong with this, so this is what I used.
Spread half of mixture over crust.
Spread 1 quart vanilla ice cream over mixture. Ok, I usually try to follow recipes exactly so I can feature them accurately, but once in awhile, I just can’t help but substitute, like now… Caramel Collision ice cream won over boring vanilla ice cream here.
Freeze. Before serving, warm remaining sauce and drizzle over the top.
It didn’t exactly drizzle (and I warmed it till it was bubbling), so I put it into a baggie and snipped the corner off and piped it on. Maybe I used the wrong ‘fudge sauce’.
All I can say is YUM!!!
Let’s make some Chocolate Leaves!
You’ll notice that I’m doing this because I get a kick out of it, not because I’m refined, elegant, and professional! 
First of all, I should’ve got my husband to do the photography instead of someone less than 4′ tall. But, I picked on the one who was sitting on a barstool with her face within a foot of my project, asking questions and wanting to help. Can’t blame her… at 4 years old, I’d have been dying to be turned loose with a paintbrush, melted chocolate, and leaves… paint, lick, paint, paint, lick…
I’ve made chocolate leaves only once in my life… just last weekend. So, if you’ve made them twice, you’re more experienced than me. 
I went out to my rosebush (if you DON’T know me, you’re picturing something with beautiful pink roses hanging all over it, aren’t you? And if you DO know me, you’re thinking, “Huh?! You have an ALIVE rosebush?!”, aren’t you?)… anyway, I went out to my rosebush and picked 8 leaves off, brought them in and washed them under running water, and patted them dry with a paper towel. Then I took a paintbrush (everything else that’s actually a kitchen tool looked too big and cumbersome) and spread melted chocolate on the bottom side of the leaf.
I just let them harden a little at room temp, then put another coat on and put them in the fridge to harden. Then, I got them out and peeled the leaves off…
When they were done, we were awing over them and Lexi said, “Mom, they’re SO pretty! Can I eat them?” Um, let me think… “No!”
I put them back in the fridge till I was ready to use them.
Next time, I’d make them a bit thicker. It was kinda neat how thin and delicate they were, BUT I started with 8 leaves, had 3 casualties, and ended up with 5 because they broke when I was pulling the leaves off. It was fun and they looked so neat… I’ll definitely make them more often!
Have any of you made chocolate leaves before that you could give us all some more tips?
What I put the leaves on was a new recipe , so I’ll throw that in here too, while I’m at it.
German Chocolate Cream Pie …from the 2002 Quick Cooking Annual cookbook
1 pkg (4 oz) German sweet chocolate
1/3 cup milk
1 pkg (3 oz) cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp sugar
1 carton (8 oz) frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 graham cracker crust (9 inches)
Whipped topping, frest mint and chocolate dessert decorations, optional
In a saucepan over low heat, cook the chocolate and milk until choc is melted; stir until smooth. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth.
Stir in chocolate mixture. Fold in whipped topping. Spoon into crust. Freeze until firm. May be frozen for up to 3 months, just in case you could leave a chocolate pie alone for 3 months, knowing it’s right there in the freezer!
Remove from the freezer 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with whipped topping, mint and chocolate decorations if desired. Yield: 6-8 servings.
I had a bunch of melted chocolate left over and no more Cool Whip, so I just drizzled the chocolate over… it does need garnish of some sort, looks very plain without!
It was really good, except that I’m a milk chocolate fan, not semi-sweet. To me, this German sweet chocolate tasted just like semi-sweet. I want to try it again sometime and substitute 4 oz (or more 
) of milk chocolate chips instead of the German chocolate.
About Me
Hi! Welcome to my kitchen! My name is Kay. I'm from central Ohio. I love cooking and baking. Especially baking. It's thereapeudic for me. I'm not a professional or gourmet cook by any means. I'm a Christian homemaker who happens to take pictures of some of the food I make. I have 2 little 'helpers'... Lexi (7) and Tiffany (3), who are young cooks in training. I don't do anything on the grill... that's where my husband Shannon comes in! He grills quite a bit, especially in the summer. So, sit back and enjoy browsing thro' the recipes. If you try some of them, I'd love to hear feedback on how you liked them! If you want to contact me, my email address is kaylouann@gmail.com
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