Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade), fully baked and cooled
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 4 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tbsp butter, 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped with 2 tbsp sugar (for topping)

Method

1. If not using a pre-baked crust, blind-bake the crust at 400°F (205°C) with pie weights for 15 minutes, remove the weights, and bake 5 more minutes until golden. Cool completely.
2. Whisk the milk, sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks together in a saucepan.
3. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thickened and bubbling, about 8 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and whisk in the peanut butter, butter, and vanilla until smooth.
5. Pour the warm filling into the cooled crust and press plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming.
6. Refrigerate at least 4 hours, or until fully chilled and set.
7. Top with sweetened whipped cream before serving.

The Tale of Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Story updated September 15, 2026

Peanut butter cream pie combines two ingredients with very different American histories. Peanuts arrived in the South by way of the transatlantic slave trade in the 1700s, becoming an important crop in the Tidewater regions of Virginia and the Carolinas, where they were long dismissed by white Southerners as 'slave food' even as enslaved cooks incorporated them widely. Peanut butter itself only became a mainstream American product in the early twentieth century, its spread aided by agricultural researchers like George Washington Carver, who promoted peanuts at Tuskegee Institute and developed hundreds of uses for the crop. Exactly when someone first folded peanut butter into a cream pie filling isn't documented; the pie shows up in community and church cookbooks by the mid-1900s, becoming especially popular across the South as an affordable, crowd-pleasing dessert for potlucks, reunions, and Sunday suppers.