Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Chocolate and peanut butter that is healthy?!  Obviously there are healthier things to eat, but for dessert on Easter Sunday or any other spring holiday you might celebrate, this gluten-free, dairy-free pie has all natural, healthy ingredients and tastes YUMMY!  Secret ingredient:  tofu.  Even tofu-hating hubby agrees all you can taste is chocolatey, peanut-buttery goodness.

The chocolate filling, with only slight tweaks, comes from Chocolate Covered Katie. She makes the most awesome, healthy desserts.  The tofu replaces the heavy cream usually used in chocolate cream pie, but this does not mean you give up taste!  It is very dense and rich, and you can enjoy a piece without spending the evening feeling like a lump of lard is sitting in your stomach :).

Once I had a great filling I needed a great crust.  I found a peanut butter crust recipe (and now can’t find the link! sorry person who posted this original recipe) with only two ingredients: peanut butter and sugar.  I use natural peanut butter (just peanuts and salt) with substitute sugar blends and … omg.  To die for.

You can add whipped cream or not; in the picture below I crumbled some of the crust on  top to make it look pretty.

INGREDIENTS

Peanut Butter Crust

1 cup natural peanut butter, room temperature
1/4 cup Splenda brown sugar blend
1/4 cup Truvia baking blend
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Filling

10 oz. semi-sweet (60 % cocoa or more) chocolate chips
12 to 16 oz. silken tofu (must be silken!)
1 1/2 tsp dark cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp any milk
1/8 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp agave or any sweetener

DIRECTIONS

Crust

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix all ingredients together in a mixing bowl until smooth.

Spoon the dough into a 9″ pie pan. Using the back of a clean spoon, spread dough evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan (it won’t go all the way up the sides). Do this quickly so that the dough doesn’t become sticky and hard to work with.

Bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes, or until crust just begins to brown. Since the peanut butter is brown it can be hard to tell if your crust is browning, so watch it closely.  As you can see in this picture, the bottom looks slightly darker than the sides.

Let crust completely cool while preparing filling.

Filling

Pour 10 oz. of chocolate chips into a microwave-safe bowl.

Heat in microwave on a medium to low setting for 30 seconds at a time, stirring every 30 seconds, until chocolate is completely melted.

Add the melted chocolate, along with the rest of the filling ingredients, into a sturdy blender or a food processor.

(Note:  Most tofu packages in my local grocery store come as a 16 oz package.  If you are using a 12 oz. package, the chocolate taste of the filling will be darker and richer; if using 16 oz., a little lighter.  There is not a huge difference, so I find it more convenient to just add whatever size package I find.  But make sure it is silken; I’m not sure what any other kind of tofu would do to the consistency of the pie.)

Blend filling ingredients until super-smooth. (You may have to stop the blender/food processor a couple times and use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and get the unmixed filling down into the blender/processor.

Spoon filling over cool crust and refrigerate until completely chilled through (several hours or overnight). The chocolate filling gets firmer and firmer, the longer it sits.

When ready to serve, add whipped cream if desired.