Baking Friday - Pie # 7

Did you celebrate Chocolate Day on Monday?  Or Teddy Bear Picnic Day yesterday?

We did!  We celebrated both of them in one pie!

My friend, K, remembers celebrating Teddy Bear Picnic Day when she was 6 years old with peanut butter and honey sandwiches from her 1st Grade teacher. So in honor of that story, I made this peanut butter pie with peanut butter cups and chocolate honey glazes, so we celebrated 2 holidays in 1 pie!

And this was EASY SCHMEAZY, folks.  Let me tell ya!  Cause Wednesday night, I didn't have time for baking...

That's right.  Cards tix.  To these seats.

Where we were front and center for Star Wars night at the ball park and 14 rows over the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout.  Sweet!  So who had time for baking when there was Ballpark Village to also visit and hang out with all the cool kids?

I put this pie together in 30 minutes flat, even including kitchen clean up, so this is THAT easy!  And yet it was pretty good based on these comments back from folks:

Deb, you are amazing.. seriously. I wish you were my 1^st grade teacher so I could’ve been introduced to your treats many, many years ago! Thank you, this was delicious… perhaps one of my favorites so far!

This is fantastic.  A peanut butter lovers dream! A creamy delight.  I love the touch of nutella.

On behalf of my Cardinals Bear and Blues Bear I say….ummmm yummy!!

This was another one of those, where I was like, peanut butter pie?!?  But knowing Deb, and the love that would be baked into every bite, I knew I had to try it, and what a neat adventure this was.  The peanut butter, with the hints of nutella, and the honey drizzles, was a combination that worked very well together.  It was like a hug from your favorite teddy bear as a child, but for your taste buds.  You can definitely taste the love, is what I’m saying…  It’s baked right in…

Do I LOVE my taste testers or what?  Aren't they simply Da. Best. ?!!!

That's right, this peanut butter pie also had drizzles of honey, cause after all, this was all about how K had celebrated Teddy Bear Picnic Day...

Here's the recipe, but I don't have any pics of the process, cause I was in a hurry!

Crust

Basic vanilla wafer crust with melted butter, but one of my taste testers had a genius idea - why not use Nutter Butters in the crust?  Of course!  I wish I'd thought of it, and will do that next time! 

I combined the wafer crumbs with the melted butter and baked at 350 for 10 minutes.

Chocolate Glaze

1/2 cup cream

1 cup chocolate chips

Splash of vanilla

1 T. corn syrup

I heated the cream until warm and then poured over the chocolate chips.  I let that set for a few to soften the chips and then mixed together until creamy and added the vanilla and corn syrup.  I lined the crust with most of this mixture and reserved the rest to garnish the top of the pie.

Filling 

8oz. softened cream cheese

1/4 cup Nutella (fun stuff!)

3/4 cup peanut butter (I used creamy, but you could use crunchy if ya like that texture addition)

1/4 cup softened butter

1/2  cup cream (the filling is even better if you pre-whip the cream and fold it in at the last, but I had to get the stadium, man!)

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup marshmallow cream

Splash of vanilla and almond (and next time I want to add not more than 5 drops of orange oil but maybe more than 3...so would that be 4???)

1/2 cup of miniature peanut butter cups, cut in half (reserve 3 halves for the top)

Beat everything together until smooth and creamy in your mixer and then fold in the cream (if you took that step) and the peanut butter cup halves and then pour it all into your crust.  Garnish with the reserved chocolate glaze and the peanut butter cups and the honey.  And then chill and go to the ballgame!

When you are ready to take your favorite teddy bear for a picnic, give him a bit of chocolate...

...and his own piece of the pie!

Look at that perfectly cut piece of pie!  This piece of pie brought to you courtesy of my own personal Portion Control Manager who took over cutting the pie.  For his wonderful service, he got to enjoy the 1 single Nutter Butter garnish.  Woo-hoo!

And that's it folks!  (If you decide to celebrate Teddy Bear Picnic Day today or tomorrow, I'm sure that your favorite teddy bear won't mind...my guess is that he hasn't looked online to see when it really was...jus' sayin'...)

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you come back next week to see what holidays we celebrate then!