Cool Creamy Peanut Butter Cream Pie
Pi Day is coming on 3.14! You don’t need a special occasion to whip up an easy, delicious, creamy no bake pie. Peanut Butter Cream Pie is a great option for all you peanut butter lovers. And if you like your peanut butter with a little chocolate, this is your pie! Preparing this pie can be easy or SUPER easy.
Peanut Butter Cream Pie starts with a homemade vanilla wafer crust, or swap it with a ready-made crust. Or customize the crust flavor. If vanilla wafer is not your favorite, try a graham cracker crust, or Oreo crust. All three ready-made crust flavors come already prepared at your favorite grocery store. But I hope you’ll give the vanilla wafer crust a go. The flavors work so well together.
The cool creamy filling in this pie begins with cream cheese as the base. For best results, it’s hard to beat Philadelphia brand cream cheese. I have tried other brands over the years, but they produce inconsistent results. For peanut butter, the best results come from using creamy peanut butter and not the natural types with oil floating on the top. Save the natural stuff for another use. My go-to peanut butter brand for this is Jif, but use your favorite. Vanilla extract is important in this recipe. Nothing beats real extract. You will need a teaspoon in the filling and another teaspoon in the whipped cream.
Making your own whipped cream is very easy and an important ingredient in this peanut butter cream pie recipe. However, if you prefer, you can replace the homemade whipped cream with 8 ounces of frozen whipped topping that is thawed. I hope you will make your own because not only is it easy, but it’s very satisfying to say you made the whole thing yourself.
What is your favorite pie? I can’t choose! There are way too many great ones out there. Whether you’re making one for Pi Day, or just because, I hope you’ll give this Peanut Butter Cream Pie recipe a try. Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Enjoy!
Peanut Butter Cream Pie
Equipment
- 8" – 9" pie plate
Ingredients
- 1 Vanilla Wafer crust (recipe below) optional: Ready Crust, graham cracker crust, or Oreo cookie crust
- 1 8 ounce cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Whipped Cream
- 1½ cups heavy cream or use an 8 ounce frozen whipped topping that has been thawed instead of making whipped cream
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Vanilla Wafer Crust
- 50 vanilla wafers or use a Ready Crust, graham cracker crust, or Oreo crust
- 5 tablespoons melted butter
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees if preparing a Vanilla Wafer crust. If using a ready-made crust, skip to the Peanut Butter Cream filling instructions.
- Crush vanilla wafers in the bowl of a food processor until they are mostly fine crumbs. This method works the best. Alternatively, vanilla wafers can be crushed in a zippered bag with a rolling pin. I find this method a little tougher with vanilla wafers compared to graham crackers, but either method works. Or save time and purchase a ready-made vanilla wafer crust.
- This should yield about 2 cups of crumbs.
- To the crumbs in the bowl of the food processor, add melted butter, sugar and pinch of salt. Pulse about 10 times to produce moist crumbs. Add crumb mixture to pie plate and press to bottom and sides of pan. The flat bottom of a measuring cup works well for this step.
- Bake crust for 8-10 minutes until set but not brown. Remove from oven and cool completely before filling.
- Prepare whipped cream before beginning cream filling. Or skip making your own whipped cream and use a frozen, 8 ounce whipped topping that has been thawed.
Peanut Butter Cream filling
- In batter bowl, or bowl with high sides, add cream cheese. Beat on medium speed with electric mixer until smooth.
- Add sugar and beat until smooth.
- Add peanut butter and vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed until fully incorporated. Mixture will not look smooth, but thick and will resemble peanut butter cookie dough.
- Add about one cup of prepared whipped cream to the peanut butter mixture. Beat with electric mixer until just blended.
- Mixture will be smooth.
- Repeat with another cup of whipped cream. Mixture will be smooth and lighter in color.
- Add remaining whipped topping and fold in with rubber scraper until fully incorporated.
- Fold in chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
- Pour prepared filling into cooled crust. Chill 4 hours or overnight. Store in refrigerator.
Whipped Cream
- Add heavy cream to large bowl or bowl or stand mixer. Beat until beginning to hold its shape. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat. Set aside or in the refrigerator until needed in peanut butter cream pie recipe.
