If you want to end a summer celebration or gathering with a big old bang, you would be hard pressed to pick a better dessert than an ice cream pie. Somehow, ice cream stuffed into a pie crust just seems so much more festive and decadent and sultry than bowls of ice cream.
And it’s one of the easiest-to-make treats on the planet. Especially this version, with the classic chocolate, vanilla and peanut butter cup thing happening. Not to mention the whipped cream.
Often, ice cream pies have cookie crusts of some sort, but I had a refrigerated pie crust hanging around and decided to blind bake the crust and use that as the base for this pie. Blind baking means baking a pie crust on its own, so that it can be fully cooked and wonderfully flaky before you start piling in a filling that doesn’t need to be cooked, like a chocolate mousse or all kinds of icebox pies.
For this recipe, fit the pie dough (homemade or from a package) into the pan, line the dough with parchment paper, cover it with weights of some sort (like dried rice or beans) so the dough stays in place without shrinking or bubbling, and bake it. There are also pie weights available for the dedicated baker.