Sugar & Spice

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and whether you prefer sugar or spice, I'm gonna make everything nice with some of my favorite desserts that are so delicious

But before I get started, let's run to Plains, Georgia, the peanut capital of the world, for some of their freshly creamed peanut butter

And then we're gonna head back to the kitchen where I'm gonna put Bob's peanut butter pie recipe to test. Taste test, that is

And today we're making the cream of my cheesecake cropped, smothered in a syrupy praline sauce

And if that's not sweet enough, I'm going to spice it up with my crunch top apple pie

That's sure to please. So y'all bring your sweet tooth because life's about to get even sweeter

I don't know if y'all are aware or not, but I went to Plains, Georgia

and had the most wonderful chat with one of our presidents, Jimmy Carter

Had such a wonderful time. And as you know, Plains is all about peanuts

For today's show, I think we ought to go back to Plains and get some peanuts and maybe even some peanut butter

Because today, it's all about sugar and spice and everything nice. Just what us little girls are made of

So y'all come with me. We're going to have a nutty day today. Hey, Bobby

Hey, Paula. How you doing again? I'm fine. It's so good to see you

I haven't seen you since I was here to chat with the president. Well, good. How'd the chat go

Oh, gosh. It was just fabulous. I'm here for another reason today, though

I heard about your peanut butter. Bobby, what makes your peanut butter so much better

Our peanut butter is an all-natural. It's nothing but fried peanuts ground up into peanut butter

Everything in here is a good place. Well, I'm thinking about making a pie. I got a couple of recipes for peanut butter buys

I've got a great peanut butter pie recipe. Would you share it with me

I certainly will. We used to serve this in our restaurant whenever we was here in Plain

so this is a great peanut butter pie recipe that you could use if you like

Well, I can't wait to get to my kitchen and make that pie. I appreciate so much you giving me the peanut butter and the recipe

Thank you. Thank you, Bobby. I'll see you next time I'm in Plain. All right, okay

Bye-bye. Well, did y'all have fun visiting Plains

Such a pretty little town, and the Carters are so nice. And wasn't Bobby just cute as a pig's ear

I was just thrilled to get his homemade peanut butter. But when he said, well, Paula, you want a recipe too

I said, you bet I do, baby. What a bonus. So we're going to be making Bobby's peanut butter pie later on

But first we're gonna start with a cheesecake. So let's get going

Now we're gonna start with graham cracker crumbs and a little sugar

and a little melted butter. I just love my little cast iron skillet

for melting my butter in. All right, so we're just gonna mix that up

and moisten all of those crumbs in there with that butter. So we're just gonna dump those into our pan

Kind of get it distributed and press it down. Okay, so we got that in there nicely

So we'll move on over to the center of our cheesecake. And we're gonna start with three eight-ounce packages of cream cheese

This is gonna make a big, fat cheesecake. All right, we're gonna put a cup of sugar

And we're just gonna beat this until it's creamy. Make sure our beaters are in there right, and they are

Now we're gonna add five eggs, and I'm gonna add those one at a time

giving them an opportunity to get worked into that cream cheese and sugar

All right, now we're putting the eggs in it because it's gonna make it cake-like

because you know we're not putting any flour in this particular recipe

Some recipes actually call for The recipes actually call for like a fourth of a cup of flour

but we're putting in none in this one. All right, so we're just gonna mix that up good

We're gonna add a tablespoon of vanilla, which is just gonna flavor it perfectly, and we're ready to go

I'm gonna raise my beater slowly, leaving it running just ever so low to kind of sling that batter off of those helps clean our beaters off Now we going to pour it into our crust Oh doesn that look good It just as smooth as our baby behind

Right now we're going to get this in the oven, and we're going to let that bake for about 45 minutes

And then we're going to pull it out, let it cool for a minute, And we're gonna top it with one of my favorite ingredients in the whole world, sour cream

So I've got one that should be ready over here for the topping

So let's give it a check. Oh, and it is. It's ready

Look at that nice cheesecake. See where it's got a little crack around the edges letting us know it's ready

So I'm going to sit it right here while we stir together our sour cream

And I wouldn't recommend using a light sour cream. I would go ahead, since you're having cheesecake, and do the full-strength sour cream

And then we're going to add a little sugar and a little vanilla flavoring

And this doesn't require a mixer. We're just going to stir that sugar into our sour cream

Now I'm just gonna take this and pour it over the top of our cheesecake, and we're gonna run it back in the oven for an extra five minutes

so that sour cream can kind of set up on top of our cream cheese

Now we're just gonna spread that around evenly, and that five minutes in the oven is just gonna let that sour cream kind of set up

All right, we're gonna let that bake for five minutes, And when we come back, I've got one that's cooling in the window and ready for that sinful praline sauce

So y'all grab your cup of coffee and come right back because the best is yet to come

Okay, I've got this cheesecake in the window that's totally, totally chill

There's a nice little breeze this morning, so it is totally cool

I'm going to sit it right here, and we're going to make that sinful praline sauce to go on

It won't take it but a minute to make. I'm going to use, oh, about two tablespoons of packed brown sugar

Oh, I'm going to do just a little extra. And then I've got ordinary cornstarch

and this is going to tighten up our praline sauce so it'll stick to that cheesecake

I'm going to kind of mix that together quickly. And then we're going to add one cup of dark corn syrup

Mmm, that's gonna give us a nice, caramelly, praline look to our sauce

And we're just gonna cook this just long enough for the cornstarchy taste to dissolve and the sugar

And while that's getting hot and bubbly, I'm gonna come over here

and I'm gonna just do a light chop to these pecans. We don't want them ground too fine

because you want to know that you're actually eating a pecan on top of that cheesecake, just like that

That's probably about a half a cup. And when we take it off

I'm gonna add some vanilla flavoring. But I've already got some here that's cooled

and ready for our cheesecake. Look how delicious this looks, that caramel in that pecan

Oh, it's gonna be so good. All right, we're gonna just gently remove that ring

I just love cheesecake. I love coming to work every day. All right, I'm going to ease up there

Perfect cheesecake. Whoops! That won't hurt it, though. All right, this is nice and bubbly

So I'm going to turn it off. All right, here we go

Get set, go. Ah, and you see where I messed up that plate

I think I know just what'll fix it. We're gonna cover that up with just a little bit of sweetened fresh cream

Does that look delicious or what? Wish you were here, Michael. Too bad

It's unbelievably wonderful. I'm gonna set that right there. And now let's move on to Bobby's Peanut Butter Pie

I'm gonna take an 8-ounce package of cream cheese, and I'm gonna give it just a quick little beat

to get it creamy and smooth. All right, now I'm gonna take just 4X powdered sugar

and add to that All right now I gonna cut that off I going to put a cup of Bobby peanut butter in it And this is a natural peanut butter

It doesn't taste like your store-bought. All right, there we go. And I'm going to just add that to the cream cheese

Give that a quick whip. Down in southwest Georgia, peanuts are a very high commodity

In fact, Mr. Jimmy started selling peanuts on the streets of Plains when he was four years old

So he realized the value of this nut very early on in his life

Now all we have to do at this point is fold it into our heavy cream

Now if you wanted to, I guess you could use a refrigerator type topping

but the fresh cream really makes it good. So just gonna fold that together

into that whipping cream, and we're going to put it into a store-bought graham cracker crust

So, we're just going to pile that in there. All right, we've got this one piled high, full of that peanut butter and cream cheese

and heavy cream, and we're going to stick it in the refrigerator and just let it set

up, which won't take long. In fact, I already have one that's ready right here

for us to pull out and look at and possibly even sample

Doesn't that look good? It's got a nice brown look to it

See how it cuts? Oh, it cuts beautifully. And I'm just gonna cut me a little, little tiny piece

Doesn't that look yummy? Looks delicious. And I'm gonna sprinkle it with just a few peanuts

Just a few extra. And put me a dollop of cream on it

Looks like this one turned out just perfect. So good, Bobbie. Thank you, Jean, so much for writing down this recipe for me

Y'all don't go anywhere. because next I'm going to be baking up a crunchy topped hot apple pie

So I'll see y'all in a minute. Now I've just taken my first apple pie out of the oven

and I'm going to sit it here in the window and let it cool. And if y'all will, come back into the kitchen, because I want to show you how easy it was to make America's favorite pie, the apple pie

Mmm, I wish y'all were here to smell how delicious that pie smells. So easy, though

You can have your one in the oven, just in a jiffy. I'm going to start by using Rome apples, and I'm going to squeeze about a tablespoon of lemon juice over them

to just keep them from turning dark. And I'm gonna use about 3 fourths a cup of sugar

And to that we're gonna add one tablespoon of flour, a pinch of salt

and some ground cinnamon. And we're just gonna stir that up. One of my buddies, her name's Julia Christian

she gave me this recipe. She said, Paula, you gotta try this. It's just my favorite of all the apple pies

And I did, and I love it, because we actually put applesauce in it

which makes it so good. So we're going to toss our apples into our sugar and flour

and get those apples nice and coated with that sugar. Ooh, I can smell the lemon and the cinnamon

All right, now we're just going to add our applesauce, which really is just a little different

from your ordinary apple pie. We're just gonna give that a little stir

Doesn't that look yummy? All right, I'm gonna let that sit there a minute

because I want to talk to you about your pie crust. You probably hear me saying all the time

I really love the refrigerated dough. Now, I've taken one section, and I have put it in our pie plate

And you see I'm using a deep pie plate for the apple pie today

And we're just gonna take that and pour it into the raw crust

because this is gonna bake long enough for your crust to actually get done on you

I'm gonna just make sure that apple sauce is distributed all around there

And I'm gonna dot it with some butter. Just season up those apples just a little bit. Okay

Now we're gonna put a lattice crust on this pie, on this pie and it so very simple We gonna take an extra round of dough Now this is on parchment paper so it won stick on me Now I gonna take my knife and I gonna run it down into

my flour so the dough won't stick to our knife. We're just gonna cut us some strips. Now if

you like wide lattice, you can cut them wide. If you like a narrow lattice, you can cut

but I'm more narrow. All right, so we're gonna start with the outside

of our circle, and I'm gonna use five strips. Now, latticing is very, very simple

I'm gonna pull every other strip back and lay a piece of crust in there

and then fold that back over. So you see I've got three strips under, two strips over

All I'm gonna do now is take the three strips that are under, bring them back

and come in there with another piece. Bring them back over and then do the same thing again

with another strip. As it looks like it might be hard, but it's not at all

And we have a latticed pie crust. Now I'm gonna come in and just take the edges

and trim them up to fit our plate. Now before we put that in the oven

we are gonna make a crunch topping for it. It's very, very simple to do

We're gonna take some flour. some sugar, and just a pinch of salt

And then we're gonna cut in some butter until it's kind of crumbly

just like we were making biscuits. And then we're gonna come over here

and just sprinkle this on top of our pie. All right, now we're gonna slip this into the oven

which has been preheated to 425 degrees. We're gonna let it bake for about 10 minutes

and then we're gonna lower the temperature to 350. But this one in the window should be ready for you and me to taste

And you know, I don't believe that we can have a piece of apple pie

without some vanilla ice cream, so you see I got my scoop right ready

but I'm gonna go ahead and cut into this one and get it on the plate

And while I'm getting this ready, I wanna tell you how Southerners love their apple pie

When I was a little girl and my mother would make apple pies, she would always pull out the cheddar cheese

grate that, put it on top of the slice of apple pie, and run it under the brawler

and we would have cheese-topped apple pie that was so delicious. But I'm gonna serve this first piece with vanilla ice cream

Doesn't that look good? You can see all the applesauce oozing out of there

Y'all think I got me enough ice cream? I hope this is gonna work out right

Oh, doesn't that just look yummy? It's too good and too simple

I gotta take a quick break, and when I come back, I'm gonna share some baking tips with you

So y'all don't leave me now. There's so many varieties of apples out there

you can almost confuse one. But if you'll stick with an apple that has a lot of sugar in it

that will help it hold its shape. And for your apple pies, I recommend the Rome Apple

the Granny Smith, or the Golden Delicious. All these will work out real, real well for your pie

And for those big old cheesecakes, if you're having a cocktail party and everybody just wants a little bite

just downsize them into your mini muffins and people will think you're just wonderful

and awfully, awfully sweet. I hope that y'all's Sugar and Spice Day

will be as sweet and spicy as mine's been. I hope that you'll try the cheesecake recipe

just lathered with sour cream and the praline sauce. And of course, Bobby and Jean's peanut butter pie

is just out of this world. And the crunch top apple pie is just so delicious

In fact, I've got some with some melted cheese on it that I've just got to taste

You just need to try this because cheese and apples just go together

Mmm. My mother may not be with me today, but she'll forever live in my heart

And on that note, America, I wish you best dishes from my kitchen to yours