Peanut Butter Icebox Pie

There are not many combinations more perfect than peanut butter and chocolate.  When I came across this recipe as I was flipping though The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook I immediately stopped and added the ingredients to my grocery list.

There is no baking required and therefore no need to turn on your oven, which is nice for me.  It’s been over 100°F most days this summer.

I changed a few things about the assembly of this pie to make it a little simpler.  If you read the recipe from the cookbook you notice that the assembly requires some marbling of the caramel, peanut butter and cream cheese mixture.  I just put a layer of caramel on top of the crust and then mixed the peanut butter in with the cream cheese.  This seemed to be a fine way to assemble the pie, maybe just not as pretty as the marbling would have been.

I highly recommend putting the peanut butter cups in the fridge or freezer prior to chopping.  This makes life, cutting boards, knives and hands, much cleaner.

As you might have noticed, there is not much sugar in the filling.  I was a little worried about this, but it was perfect.  Who am I to doubt Magnolia Bakery?  Combined with the cookie crust, caramel and peanut butter cups it is just wonderful and not overly sweet.

One of my new guilty pleasures are those Reese’s Minis, and I happen to have a stash of them in the fridge (where I must keep any chocolate with it being so hot this time of year.)  I halved the minis and chopped some unsalted peanuts for the topping.  If I were feeling really crazy I might use salted peanuts as a nice salty contrast.  Something else that might be interesting would be using some of the white chocolate Reese’s…I think it could work.  Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Icebox Pie

From The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

Ingredients

Crust

  • 1 stick butter
  • 2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs

Filling

  • 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup (1 pint) heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks
  • 6-8 regular peanut butter cups, chopped
  • 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup caramel sauce

Garnish

  • Handful of chopped peanut butter cups
  • Handful of chopped peanuts

Directions

Crust

  1. Combine butter and cookie crumbs in a bowl until crumbs are evenly coated.
  2. Press into a 9-inch pie plate.
  3. Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Filling

  1. Beat cream cheese until fluffy, 2 minutes.  Add sugar gradually, then beat in peanut butter and vanilla.
  2. Whip the cream in a separate bowl, then fold gently into the cream cheese mixture.
  3. Fold in the peanut butter cups.

Assembly

  1. Remove the crust from the freezer.
  2. Spread the caramel on the bottom of the crust, then spread the filling over the caramel and smooth the top.
  3. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 8 hours, or overnight.
  4. To serve, garnish with peanut butter cups and peanuts.