Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Author Notes

I suppose there will always be some barrier to me feeling fully part of the United States, even after all these years. While I no longer see peanut butter as the Dark Lord, I still can’t get behind other popular American foods like chewy chocolate chip cookies or grilled cheese with Kraft Singles. But that’s okay. I’ve got a whole slew of other American favorites I’d rather eat—like Cuban pizza in Miami, legim in Little Haiti, and now peanut butter pie. —Carlos C. Olaechea

Test Kitchen Notes

This easy, no-bake peanut butter pie is made with a delicious combination of graham crackers, cream, and molasses for the crust and filling, plus raisins, walnuts, and rum for the topping. It's a very forgiving recipe that will have you and your guests clamoring for another slice. It can also hang in the fridge for a few hours, or even up to overnight without the topping, so it's a wonderful make-ahead dessert that is perfect for entertaining and holidays. With just 15 minutes at the stove and the fridge doing the rest of the work, this is the kind of dessert we can all get behind.

Carlos C. Olaechea, who developed this recipe, wrote about its journey and history. He says, "I found myself daydreaming of recipes for peanut butter desserts I wanted to try. But there was a problem: Too many of the recipes I encountered were a little too basic for my tastes and one-dimensional. It was hard to find an elegant take on the peanut butter dessert, one that appreciated the spread for what it was, but also transformed it. Despite my newfound love of peanut butter, I could never be content with mixing it with whipped topping and dumping the concoction on some crushed sandwich cookies. So I decided to come up with my very own special peanut butter pie...The end result was a dessert that could simultaneously be served as the grand finale to an elegant meal while also enveloping you in that warm gooey hug that only peanut butter can give. Exactly what I wanted in a PB dessert." —The Editors