My recent dessert orders have involved chocolate and nuts. My love of the chocolate / peanut butter combination is nothing new, but I tolerated actual nuts among sweeter ingredients, and in several desserts at that! I have my friends to thank for encouragement and like-minded ordering.
I started with Not Your Average Joe's Peanut Butter Thing!
Long a temptation when I've been there for lunch, but too hard to justify at noon, I was glad to visit Joe's for dinner with some sweet-toothed friends and indulge in this monumental dessert. After all, it's impossible not to indulge at Joe's. You start with ample helpings of their chewy bread and cheesy, peppery dipping oil, and before you know it, there are multiple Peanut Butter Things for the table following a tasty main course. This ice cream pie is an immense hunk of peanut butter ice cream, with chocolate chunks and peanuts mixed in. An Oreo crust supports the base and side of the pie, and scattered Oreo crumbs dust its top. The pie is served with a squirt of whipped cream, as well as ramekins of hot fudge and caramel sauce for you to drizzle over the cake or dunk bites at will. Here is a thoroughly drizzled slice.
The ice cream tasted subtly of peanut butter, like a lightly-flavored vanilla. Good, but I prefer a more aggressive flavor a la JP Lick's. The chocolate chunks were a welcome addition - though there could have been more! - and I wouldn't have added peanuts to the ice cream, since frozen nuts acquire a strange texture. These points became irrelevant when eating at the pie as a whole. I loved the generous supply of rich fudge and sugary caramel. Both tasted like the best classic ice cream toppings - simple, perfect flavors, sans pretense of any kind. They coated the pie and softened the frozen edges. Soon, there was a host of textures in play: thick sauce, crumbly Oreos, crunchy chocolate and nuts, and soupy and solid ice cream. Delightful! The overall effect, of simple things combined into a greater whole, was extremely satisfying. Be prepared to share!
I was at Fleming's later that week, surprisingly eager for dessert after noshing on their delicious bar burger. We all decided to split a Walnut Turtle Pie. It's easily one of 2012's best dessert discoveries!
The pie's base is a chocolate crust. Imagine the standard buttery pie crust, with cocoa powder added; this crust had both butter and chocolate flavors. The main filling is gooey, chocolatey bliss that reminded me of an undercooked brownie. I think it had caramel mixed in, since there was something warmer, sweeter, and slightly creamy to complement the delectably rich chocolate. That filling is then topped with roasted candied walnuts, caramel, and a scattering of milk chocolate shavings. When nuts are prepared as these were, I can almost forget they're nuts; I actually liked the savory-sweet crunch they added, which paired marvelously with the sticky, flowing caramel. The chocolate bits, then, were the icing on the cake! Or the shaving on the pie, if that were an acceptable idiom.
I've been at Fleming's fairly regularly in the past few months, so here's hoping there will be another trip soon. Dessert mandatory, of course. And Joe's? Well, I'll push a little harder for a lunchtime Peanut Butter Thing if the opportunity presents itself.
