A Piece of Christmas Pie

Christmas morning found me putting together graham cracker pie crusts, attempting to duplicate a fabulous peanut butter pie Caroline and I sampled (more accurately, we pretty much buried our faces in it) in October at a bookstore/cafe in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D. C. I had been thrilled to find what sounded like the exact recipe in one of my Silver Palate cookbooks. I made two graham cracker crusts using the Silver Palate recipe. But a few minutes into the baking time it was apparent that there was too much butter in the crusts.

Way too much butter. Way, WAY too much butter. The crusts in the oven were swimming in grease. I tried sopping up the grease with paper towels but more kept pooling in the bottom of the pans. I knew I was defeated when the crusts were literally melting down the sides of the pie pans.

And no more graham crackers were left in the pantry.

Luck was with me--a chain drugstore in town was open. I flew into town and grabbed the last two boxes of graham crackers. When I got home, sadder, wiser, and $7 poorer, I decided to make the piecrusts out of my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook. A known entity. They turned out beautifully, using THREE TABLESPOONFULS less butter per crust than the Silver Palate recipe. No wonder I was sopping grease on the first go-round!

For the filling and chocolate topping, I went straight with The Silver Palate recipe. The pies turned out great--an artery-clogging symphony of heavy cream, peanut butter, cream cheese, butter, and chocolate. But hey, it's Christmas. Everyone loved it. Oink.