The Vintage 6-Ingredient Pie That Doesn’t Require An Oven

TikTok certainly has its share of people who give us culinary inspiration, and it also has people who entertain us while imparting their kitchen wisdom. One of those people is B. Dylan Hollis, who thumbs through the pages of retro cookbooks to find recipes that we chuckle at now, but ended up on plenty of dining tables in the second half of the 20th century.

Some of them are enough to make you cringe, and others have you wondering when you’ll have the time to try them out, like the Ice Cream Bread made from just two ingredients: melted ice cream and self-rising flour. Somehow, it works and creates a “surprisingly tender, lightly sweet bread.”

That’s half the fun of watching Hollis’ videos. One day, he is making a “Cream of the Sea Aspic” from 1962 and spitting the finished result in the kitchen sink in horror. Another day, he is making “Ranch Cornbread” from 1987, which contains an entire bottle of ranch dressing, and to his surprise and his audience’s surprise, he likes it. 

Then there are the videos that you can tell from the start will most likely end up being pretty good. Hollis’ most recent recipe was one of those, and it’s a perfect, no-cook nostalgic dessert from 1990 that needs to be resurrected for the summer of 2025—it requires just a pre-made crust and contains Oreos, peanut butter, cream cheese, and Cool Whip. It’s an instant no-bake classic.

Rock Bottom Pie

Ingredients

Hollis makes Rock Bottom Pie from what looks like the type of cookbook churches and PTAs use to put together for fundraisers. The pie contains just 5 ingredients:

• 1 cup of peanut butter, creamy or chunky
• 1 block of cream cheese, softened
• 1 tub of Cool Whip
• 10 crushed Oreo cookies
• 1 pre-made 9-inch chocolate pie crust
• Chocolate syrup (optional)

Directions

1. Mix the peanut butter and cream together (Doing so made Hollis’ handheld mixer really struggle, so make sure your mixer has a good motor or use a stand mixer.)
2. Fold in the Cool Whip and most of the crushed Oreos.
3. Put the mixture in the pie crust, sprinkle with remaining crushed Oreos, and cover.
4. Put it in the refrigerator until it firms up.

Tips, Tricks, and How to Serve Rock Bottom Pie

It’s as easy as that. Hollis cuts a slice, drizzles it with some optional chocolate syrup, and takes a bite. 

“That’s just old-fashioned good,” he says with a smile on his face. “If that’s what rock bottom tastes like, I’m all for it.”

Some of his followers had substitutions that sounded pretty good. One recommended using cut-up Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups instead of the Oreos, and someone else thought the chocolate sandwich cookies could be replaced with Biscoff. Another wondered if Nutella could replace the peanut butter. 

This recipe needs to be added to your no-bake dessert repertoire for hot summer days when you don’t want to turn on the stove or heat up your oven, but you still want delicious pie that everyone will love to finish off your meal.