The Ultimate Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

What's not to love about the classic combination of chocolate and peanut butter?  Here's a doozie of a pie that combines them in the ultimate way!  I developed this recipe for a Valentine's Day contest entry. The only baking time required for this is a quick little pre-bake of the crust.

A recipe for peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies won the contest, not my pie, but my husband says it's a winner as far as he's concerned, so here it is and if you try it, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Ingredients:

Crust:

Non-stick cooking spray

6 chocolate Oreo cookies  

10 Nutter Butter cookies

4 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened to room temperature

1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow crème

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 (8 oz.) container Cool Whip, thawed

6 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, cut into quarters

Topping:

1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts, chopped (regular or honey roasted)

Chocolate syrup

 3 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, whole

Let's make this thing!!!

Using a food processor, combine and process all cookies together into a fine crumb (makes about 2 ¼ cups of crumbs). Pour crumbs into a medium bowl.

Add melted butter and mix with a fork until all crumbs are moistened.

Spray a 9 inch, deep dish pie plate lightly with non-stick cooking spray and press crumb mixture evenly into bottom and sides of it.  Bake at 350 degrees for 7 minutes, remove from oven and allow to cool completely. While cooling, begin making the filling.

Here's the pre-baked crust, ready to fill with the good stuff!!

 

For the filling, beat the peanut butter, cream cheese, marshmallow crème, and powdered sugar together with a hand or stand mixer until smooth (about 2 minutes), and then add the Cool Whip and beat again until smooth. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl and stir.

 Pour half the filling into the cooled crust, spreading evenly on top with a butter knife or the back of a spoon.

 

Drizzle with chocolate syrup in a criss-cross fashion over the filling (Ghirardelli is my favorite brand), then cut 6 of the 9 peanut butter cups into quarters as seen below.

 

Gently press the quartered pieces into the surface of the filling/chocolate until the top of them is even with the top of the filling.  

Top with remaining filling and spread evenly again. 

Drizzle more chocolate syrup over second layer of filling as before.

 Put about 1/4 cup roasted peanuts in a zip lock bag and crush them.

Sprinkle the peanuts all the way around the outer edge of the pie, leaving the center with no peanuts, but with the chocolate syrup drizzle showing. 

Place the three remaining peanut butter cups into the center of the pie by turning them sideways and pushing them almost halfway into the pie, in a decorative fashion.

Chill for at least 4 hours before serving.

I'm telling you, if you like chocolate and peanut butter together, and especially if you like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, you're going to love this pie!  I'm diggin' in!!