A Slice of Childhood

"Every birthday is one step closer to a more adult tomorrow, it is therefore necessary to embrace childhood at every possible opportunity" *

"Eating this pie is like having a slice of my childhood." *

"Oh my god, this pie is amazing! I'm having another slice." *

*These quotes are recorded with 87% accuracy from a friend's birthday party at which I served a Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
1 package cream cheese, softened (I used Philadelphia Cream Cheese. I'm not usually a brand snob when it comes to food, but the one thing I do not mess with is my Philly cream cheese)
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Skippy)
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
10 oz. jam or jelly, flavor of your choosing (I used Smucker's Strawberry Jelly)
1 pre-made graham cracker pie crust
Chocolate graham cracker crumbs

How to:
Stir together peanut butter and cream cheese. Add sugar, cream and vanilla, stirring until your mixture is light and fluffy. Pour batter into pie crust, and refrigerate for one hour.

Peanut butter batter

While the bottom half of your pie is chilling, you can do two things: First, put about 4 or 5 graham crackers into a ziplock baggie and crumble until crumby (if you have kids this might be a fun part of the process for them to "assist" on. I say "might" because I don't have kids and don't really know. But if I did have kids I might let them make graham cracker crumbs.)

About to be smashed to pieces. Literally.

Then, empty your jelly into a sauce pan and whisk continuously on very LOW heat. It's important that you don't burn the jelly, so do not let it boil - just keep whisking until it turns back into what looks like liquid jello. Once you have achieved this constancy, remove the jelly from the heat and let it cool at room temperature.

After the peanut butter mixture has chilled and you've crushed your graham crackers and liquified your jelly, it's time to finish up the pie. Spread the jelly on to the peanut butter (it's up to you how thick you want to make it), and then sprinkle the graham cracker crumbs over the whole pie. Let the pie chill again in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve it.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie

It's yummy, it's fun to make, and really, it's basically eating a slice of childhood. I served it at my friend's birthday party last night, and I barely had time to take a picture of the served pie before it was completely devoured.

Bad lighting is due to the fact that we were in a bar for the birthday party. My apologies.

It was a hit!

Discovery: 20-somethings love still love peanut butter and jelly. Especially if it's in pie form.

Sometimes I make up my own recipes, sometimes I pull from others. Find my inspirations for Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie here and here and here.