Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie

While eating a PB & J, have you ever wondered why this awesome sandwich hasn't been made into a pie?  I did!  So I created the PB & J pie and it is amazing how much it is like a pb & j sandwich!  (if you use strawberry jam instead of grape that is)

So, I'm not great at making up recipes yet, but I love to put things together to make awesome dishes!  So here is where I got the pieces to this pie.  Everything seemed to be the right amount.  I had a little extra of the peanut butter mousse, but my hubby loves peanut butter so it's there for him to add on a little extra!

Crust - Bar crust from here:

• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c. cold unsalted butter
• 1 egg

Filling - Peanut Butter Mousse from here:

• 1/4 c. milk
• 8 oz. pkg. Cream Cheese
• 1/2 c. Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1 c. Powdered Sugar
• 1 c. Heavy Cream
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Topping* - Strawberry sauce from here:

• 16 oz Strawberries
• 1/4 c. Sugar

*You can probably just use strawberry preserves if you want to keep it simple, but really, this topping is tasty and not hard to make!
Also, this might be a little much so you can make a smaller batch of the topping if you would like.

Time to make everything!  I'll let you know the order I did things.  

The first thing I did was make the crust.  According to the recipe, you need to mix it up, smush it into the pan and then let that sit in the fridge for a while.  So I did this and then while it was cooling I moved on to the strawberry topping.

Follow the directions for the strawberry topping, but don't completely blend it.  I was going to leave it be once it was cooked, but I wanted it to be a bit creamier so I pulsed it with the hand blender.  Just to get the pieces a bit smaller.  Once it is ready, let it sit a while to cool, and then refrigerate it.  

So now that the crust has had time to sit, bake it in the oven.  Make sure you stab that crust!  it will balloon up otherwise, mine did.  I stabbed it, baked it for 10 minutes, checked on it, popped the crust balloon that had formed, and then baked it for another 15 minutes.  You can also use pie weights if you know how to do that :)  Let the crust cool.

Now you are ready to mix up your peanut butter mousse!  If you have a mixer, you're set!  If not, it will be okay.  I hope your arm is in shape!  To mix up my cream and vanilla I used a whisk and an egg beater to get it to the right consistency which is soft peaks.  Once that is ready, fold that into the peanut butter cream cheese mix and then you are ready to assemble your pie!

Fill your crust with your mousse and you can top it with the strawberries right away.  I decided to leave it off so people could put on as little or as much as they wanted.  I also wasn't sure what the watery strawberry mix would do to the mousse.  I didn't want it to make it too wet so thought it was better to store them separately.

Now, enjoy!  It is pretty awesome how awesome it is :)