My mom has a sweet (and much appreciated!) habit of mailing me surprise treats out of nowhere. Usually, they are related to cooking, like a recent box of olive oil from the farm we stayed at when we visited Italy. A few years ago it was a beautiful deep-dish pie pan and the book Pie by Ken Haedrich. 300 pie recipes. Seriously? I probably couldn’t think of more than 10 kinds of pie, let alone 300. But it is so much fun flipping through the book and seeing so many variations on classics along with some crazy new ideas. I’ve baked a few of them since I received the book but lately I’ve been pulling it out a lot. This is one I made a few weeks ago. Talk about indulgence! It was so rich I could barely eat a sliver at a time. Not to worry though. Jeff polished off about 1/2 of it in 2 days and, fearing what it would do to his stomach, I packaged up the rest and passed it to my brother (a college freshman). And that was the end of the snickers pie.
Snickers Brownie Pie
Makes 8-10 servings
1 recipe Graham Cracker Crumb Crust
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
two 3.7-ounce Snickers bar, sliced crosswise about 1/2-inch thick
3/4 cup cold heavy or whipping cream
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter
two 3-ounce packages full-fat cream cheese, softened
Prepare the crust and press it into the bottom and up the side of a 9 1/2-inch deep-dish pie pan. Refrigerate, without prebaking. If you’re using a store-bough pie shell, simply remove it from its packaging and refrigerate until needed.
Prepare the brownie layer. Put the butter in the top of a double boiler set over, not in, barely simmering water. As the butter starts to melt, scatter the chocolate on top and leave for 5 minutes, then whisk to smooth. Remove the insert from the double boiler and set the chocolate aside to cool for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350F.
Meanwhile in a large bowl, beat the egg, egg yolk, and granulated sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the chocolate mixture and vanilla and mix until evenly blended. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl. Add to the chocolate mixture and stir until evenly combined. Scrape the batter into the chilled pie shell, smoothing the top with a spoon.
Place the pie on the center oven rack and bake for exactly 18 minutes – no more or less. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Arrange the sliced Snickers bars in a single layer over the brownie layer. Set aside to cool. Refrigerate, if desired, to accelerate the cooling.
When the brownie layer has cooled, make the peanut butter cream. Using a chilled medium-size bowl and chilled beaters, beat the heavy cream the mixer until it holds soft peaks. Add the confectioners’ sugar and continue to beat until stiff but not grainy. Blend in the vanilla. Set aside.
Combine the peanut butter and cream cheese in a large bowl. Using the mixer, beat until evenly combined. Add almost half of the whipped cream to the peanut butter mixture and blend on low speed. Add the remaining whipped cream and fold it in until evenly combined. Smooth the peanut butter cream evenly over the Snickers slices. Cover with loosely tented aluminum foil and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
From Pie by Ken Haedrich
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