Peanut Butter Honeycomb Pie

I made this for home fellowship tonight.  I got this from a magazine that was in the break room at work.  Have you ever read a magazine at work or in a doctor's waiting room, and find that a reader before you has ripped out a recipe or coupon, rendering the remaining page(s) or parts of page(s) unreadable?  I would never do that (I think...unless it was an emergency...I can't forsee what kind of emergency would warrant the ripping of pages of a community magazine, but I need to leave myself that opening).  I photocopied this recipe.  Also I would never buy this magazine.  It is Bon Apetit, and it is the type of publication you would expect to have recipes for escargot and goose liver pate.  As I was skeptically looking through it, I found this recipe, with a full page picture, and knew that my husband would love it.  I knew it would be a complicated recipe, but I knew he was worth it.  Also I knew I could not make this just for our family, because we would eat it all.  Perfect for home fellowship.  Share the calories.  I mean love.

Peanut Butter Honeycomb Pie
Crust:
9 graham crackers, coarsely crushed
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
6 tbsp butter, melted

Crust directions:  Preheat oven to 325.  Finely grind graham crackers, sugar, salt, and nutmeg in a food processor.  Transfer crumb mixture to medium bowl.  Add butter and stir to blend.  Use bottom and sides of measuring cup to pack crumbs onto bottom and up sides of 9" glass or metal pie pan (I used my Pampered Chef deep dish pie pan--looking back, anything smaller would have overflowed).  Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes (mine took 10).  Let cool.

Filling:
8 large egg yolks
12 tbsp sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise ($1.99 at NLC)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (I used salted)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt (I left this out since I used salted butter)

Filling directions:  Mix yolks and 6 tbsp sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with whisk attachment.  Beat at high speed until ribbons form (ummm okay), stopping once to scrape down sides of bowl, about 2 minutes.  Combine milk and remaining sugar in a large saucepan.  Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and add bean.  Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Remove bean.  With mixer running, gradually add hot milk mixture to yolk mixture.  Scrape mixture back into pan.  Clean mixing bowl.  Bring mixture in saucepan to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly.  Remove pan from heat; whisk vigorously for 1 minute.  Return mixture to mixing bowl; beat on high speed until cool, about 4 minutes (I kept using the whisk attachment because it didn't say to switch).  Mix in butter, 1 tbsp at a time.  Add peanut butter, powdered sugar, and salt; beat to blend.  Scrape filling into cooled crust; smooth top.  Refrigerate until set, 2-3 hours.

Topping:
2 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used semisweet), chopped
2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
Honeycomb (directions follow)
1/4 cup roasted, salted peanuts (omitted by me since Steve doesn't really like nuts)

Topping directions:  Stir chocolate and butter in a medium bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth (I just used the microwave...probably nobody at Bon Apetit has one).  Drizzle some of the chocolate glaze over the peanut butter filling, making a circle in the middle of the pie and leaving a 1" to 2" plain border.  Pile pieces of honeycomb and salted peanuts on top, then drizzle remaining chocolate glaze over.

Honeycomb:
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tbsp corn syrup
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp baking soda, sifted (I don't have a sifter...I just made sure it had no chunks and was free-flowing)

Honeycomb directions: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil (I used 10x15 jelly roll pan and parchment paper).  Combine sugar, corn syrup, honey, and water in a heavy deep saucepan.  Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves.  Increase heat to high; bring to a boil.  Cook without stirring, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush (which I don't have...wet or dry), until sugar turns pale amber.  Working quickly (ahhhh!) add baking soda (mixture will foam up dramatically [think middle school volcano]); whisk quickly just to combine.  Immediately pour candy over prepared sheet.  Do not spread out.  Let stand undisturbed until cool (about 20 minutes [unless you are doing this on an 85 degree day, in which case it will take like an hour]).  Hit candy in several places with the handle of a knife to crack into pieces and add pieces to pie as directed above.

Phew.  And now the verdict.  Steve (of course) said it was awesome.  And I felt very chef-ish when I was making it.  But if I'm being honest (which you have all come to expect of me) I don't think these flavors all combined well together.  This is a painful admission after something like 3 hours of work into the pie (which I had fun doing, don't get me wrong...I love doing stuff like this...).  The filling was very good, light and sweet.  I didn't think it was TOO sweet until like bite 5 or 6.  But it just didn't pair well with the crust.  You know how like cheesecake on a graham cracker crust is perfect?  This wasn't like that.   And the honeycomb candy was good.  The stick-to-the-teeth factor was about five times higher than your average Butterfinger candy bar, but it tasted good.  But it didn't really go with the peanut butter filling.  Not to mention the fact that it was as hard as a rock and I couldn't cut through it on top of the pie, so I had to take off all the candy before I could cut the pie to serve it.  So while I am glad I made this, and I had fun making it, I will not be making this again.  Also I will not be subscribing to this magazine.  Which, to be fair, I wouldn't have no matter how the pie turned out.