Long ago, I had a vegan pot luck, and I planned to serve vegan s'mores using Sweet and Sara's delicious vegan marshmallows...but the marshmallows had sold out, so I was stymied. There I was with a bunch of chocolate bars and vegan graham crackers, but no marshmallows. I had just recently discovered the gloriousness of homemade vegan ice cream (I call it "Nice Cream"), so I decided to try a vegan nice cream pie. I crushed the some of the graham crackers for a crust, which I filled with homemade chocolate Nice Cream. Next, I topped the pie with vegan marshmallow fluff. Then, I used the chocolate bars and remaining grahams to make chocolate-covered graham crackers, which I arranged on top of the fluff and...voila! Vegan S'Mores Nice Cream Pie.
Now, this pie was good. But I didn't ask for a lot of opinions about it, so it was only recently that I learned that many people feel that Nice Cream Pie has replaced Ambrosia on Mount Olympus. Isa's Shmlove Pie seemed a good candidate for Nice Cream-ization, so that's what I did. It was pretty easy and utterly delicious.
I tweaked the recipe. A lot. By far, my favorite part of the original Shmlove Pie was the Peanut Butter Caramel. I kept that part. I used a store-bought vegan chocolate cookie crust for that pie, but for this one, I thought better of it. Anyway, here it is...
Ridiculously Decadent Chocolate Peanut Butter Nice Cream Pie
Ingredients:
Crust
A bag of Peanut Butter Newman-Os
1-2 Tablespoons of Coconut Oil, melted
Nice Cream
1 bag of chocolate chips, or a couple of semi-sweet baking bars
1 can of coconut creme - (AKA creme de coco, creme de coconut...it's the same as the drinks mixer, also found in the Goya section. You know, this stuff:
Keep this in mind because it'll come up again when we discuss my Otherworldly Vegan Tres Leches Cake. Danged useful stuff)1 can of regular coconut milk
Peanut Butter Caramel
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons brown rice syrup
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Chocolate drizzle
1 cup of chocolate chips
1 tablespoon coconut oil
Instructions
For the crust:
I ran half a bag of Peanut Butter Newman-Os through the food processor, with a spoonful of melted coconut oil, and then pressed the resulting crumbs into a pie plate. This was almost as easy as just buying a pre-made crust. It was a little crumbly---maybe a little more oil would've helped?
I had some extra crumbs, so I set them aside and used them as topping.
If you do not have a food processor, you could just pour some cookies into a ziplock bag and smoosh them with a rolling pin, or a mallet, or...well, anything like that.
For the Nice Cream:
I used to have a Nice Cream Maker. It died, but you don't need one for this. I melted two bars of Ghirardelli's 60% baking chocolate in my own version of a double boiler - a small saucepan sitting inside my frying pan, which I filled with about 1/2 inch of water. This works very, very well for melting chocolate!
Once the chocolate was melted, I used a rubber spatula to spoon the melted chocolate into a blender with the can of coconut creme and the coconut milk. Blend away, and pour it into your prepared pie crust!
If you don't like the sound of my Nice Cream, I recommend you peruse Vegan Ice Cream Paradise and find a recipe you DO like.
Either way, freeze until the pie is nice and firm, then cover with plastic wrap until you're ready for toppings...here's the pie, midway through preparation (excuse the plastic wrap marks and the frost - I have a crazy freezer):
Next, make the peanut butter caramel. It's best to use a peanut butter with a consistent texture, like PB & Co's White Chocolate Wonderful, my go-to PB for all purposes.
To prepare the caramel:
Stir all the ingredients (peanut butter, brown rice & maple syrups, and vanilla) together in a small sauce pan. Gently heat everything over low heat, stirring constantly with a fork, just until smooth and heated through. It should fall from your fork in ribbons. If it seems stiff, turn the heat off immediately and add a little extra brown rice syrup, until it's fluid again. This happens because different peanut butters have different amounts of moisture. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. Once it's cool, spread gently over your frozen pie. Return pie to freezer.
To make the chocolate drizzle:
Use your double boiler (or my sneaky "not really a double boiler" method, described above) to melt the chocolate chips. Add the coconut oil. Use a fork to stir it until completely combined. Turn the heat off and let cool for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then...drizzle over the top of your pie. If you have leftover cookie crumbs, you can add those, too. Then...back to the freezer again!
You may want to move the pie to the fridge 30 minutes before you serve it, to make sure it's soft enough to slice.
Here's what my finished pie looked like (I forgot to take photos until it was halfway gone!):
Obviously there are endless modifications that you could employ here. There are Mint Newman-Os, for example...hmmm...
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