VEGAN Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Ok so let me start by saying I'm not a fan of *most* vegan recipes. There always seems to be something missing - a richness, a smoothness, a girth that animal fats so aptly bring to the table. The secret here is silken tofu (the extra soft kind). It covers for eggs and cream and has the perfect texture without even trying! Every other vegan dessert I've had uses coconut oil for this purpose, and I find coconut oil to be too dominate of a flavour - it just takes over in the vegan recipes I've tried, such that if there were coconut oil in this recipe you'd hardly taste the chocolate or peanut butter. Coconut is fine and all, but vegan recipes that use coconut oil just taste like pure coconut even when that's not the flavour profile of the recipe at all. All that to say, I've tried many vegan recipes over the years even though I'm not a vegan, and this one is the FIRST that I can hands down say tastes legitimately amazing - the same or maybe even better than a dairy infused counterpart. Are you ready to be convinced that not all vegan desserts taste like coconutty health foods? Good! Here we go.

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

The recipe is so darn easy, you really just need a good blender (or food processor). Blend together the following ingredients:

• 1.5 cups silken tofu
• 1.5 cups melted chocolate (I used a mix of dark and milk chocolate and melted it using the double boiler method)
• 1/4 cup chocolate soy milk (but any milk would do - vanilla, dairy, almond, cashew, etc)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (but any nut butter would do - almond, cashew, etc)

Blend up that goodness and pour it into a prepared pie dish and then let it sit for a good while - ideally make it a day in advance but if you can't wait that long, pop it in the freezer for an hour and then the fridge for another hour and you're probably set. 

As for pie crust, I chose the non-vegan option of blending a package of oatmeal cookies together with 1/3 cup melted butter (because remember I have a thing against coconut oil), which I baked at 375 with pie weights for 10 minutes, then chilled before adding my delicious chocolate peanut butter pie filling. By pie weights, I mean I poured some dry lentils onto a piece of parchment paper which was placed on top of the pie. This helps the sides of the pie crust cook in place instead of melting down towards the middle. You can actually buy pie weights, but any dry pasta or bean will work perfectly. To be truly vegan I think the store-bought graham cracker crusts are made with oil, so you could go that route. 

The texture of this no-bake pie is uh-mazing and it's so rich, you'd swear it was full of 35% cream. Let me know if you try it!