My Best Peanut Butter Pie

Anyone who has ever visited the Bluebonnet Café in Marble Falls, Texas will completely understand my obsession in trying to figure out just how they make their famous Peanut Butter Pie. Unlike any recipe you will find on the web, Bluebonnet’s is a secret recipe generations old with a peanut butter mouse-like filling chilled within a baked pastry crust, then topped with a mile-high meringue.

While the Bluebonnet Café would never conceive of verifying my recipe as theirs (duh…and good for them!), I know I’ve got it down pat after quite a few attempts, however good they all were.  Moreover, my family absolute loves it, and that’s more than good enough for me.

Ingredients:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter (or smooth)

4 oz. cream cheese at room temperature

1 ¼ cup confectioners sugar

2 Tbsp. milk

1 ½ cups whipping cream whipped to stiff peaks

Pre-baked 9-inch pie shell, completely cooled

4 large egg whites at room temperature

¼ tsp. Cream of Tartar

½ cup granulated sugar

First whip the whipping cream in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. Place the bowl in the refrigerator to remain chilled.

In a large mixing bowl, blend together the peanut butter and confectioners sugar until well incorporated. Add the cream cheese and continue to mix until completely blended. Add the milk to thin and blend again very well.

Remove the whipped cream from the refrigerator and slowly fold the peanut butter mixture into the whipped cream. When thoroughly blended, pour the mixture into your baked pie shell mounding the mixture higher toward the center and leaving a quarter-inch of the inside rim of the pie crust untouched. Chill for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees (F).

In a scrupulously clean mixing bowl, pour in the egg whites that have been allowed to come to room temperature. Add the Cream of Tartar and mix on medium speed until the egg whites begin to foam. With your mixture still running on medium speed, slowly add the granulated sugar. Increase your mixing speed to high and continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

Using a small amount of meringue at a time, place a dollop near the edge of the pie, spreading the meringue to the edge of the crust to seal. Continue around the perimeter of the pie in the same manner. Now add the remainder of your meringue onto the center of the pie smoothing the meringue fairly evenly, but keeping the highest point at the pie center. Using your spatula, touch the meringue randomly to bring “peaks” across the pie.

Place the pie into your 325 degree oven until the meringue has browned (about 10 minutes).

Chill for another hour (or longer), then serve with a chocolate sauce drizzled across the top of each cut slice.

Despite being the Chocolate Snob that I am, there’s nothing better than old fashioned Hershey’s Syrup to top this masterpiece.

~ by eheavenlygads on August 30, 2007.