SMS: Peanut Butter Truffle Pie

This week's SMS was selected by Donna of L'Amour de Tarte: chocolate pie crust. We could fill the pie with anything we wanted so long as it wasn't a recipe from the book. I knew immediately what I would do. I'd seen a peanut butter truffle tart on Sarah's blog, Blue Ridge Baker, in December and bookmarked it so it was the perfect time to give it a shot.



I've never made a chocolate pie crust, but this one was remarkably similar to a regular pie crust with the addition of cocoa powder. The recipe gives instructions for making the crust by hand, but I did it in my food processor to make life easier. It was a bit tricky to roll out out - mine kept cracking, but I did get it into the pie pan and set it out on my back deck to chill (it's REALLY cold out today and our fridge is overflowing). Then, disaster almost struck. I'd been keeping an eye on the deck and when I looked out, here's what I saw:


"Ooooh, chocolate pie crust - just what I was hoping for this morning!"

I shooed him away before he sampled the crust and then, because I felt bad, I put some crackers outside for him to nibble on instead. I brought the crust inside and set out to blind bake it. I pressed a piece of buttered aluminum foil against the crust, lined it with pie weights and baked it in a preheated 425 F oven for 20 minutes, then removed the pie weights and aluminum foil and baked for another 5-10 minutes.



After the crust cooled completely I got to work on the filling. The bottom of the crust is spread with a layer of peanut butter, which has been thinned with heavy cream. On top of the peanut butter is a basic ganache made with semisweet chocolate. It all comes together very quickly and easily and then you pop it into the fridge for at least an hour to allow the ganache to set.



As for the verdict? The pie crust was disappointing. It was quite bland and definitely not worth the effort it took to roll it out and get it in the pie plate. The filling was good, but very, very rich! I only had one small bite and that was plenty for me. Shane will likely be a big fan but he's out for a long run in this frigid weather so he hasn't tried it yet. Thanks to Donna for hosting this week! You can find the recipe for the crust on her site and the recipe for the peanut butter truffle filling on Sarah's site.