Rating: 9/10. (Donut skip!!!)
- 🥜 Category: Peanut, Smooth/Crunchy, Plain
- Country of origin: Australia (a Melbourne local)
Oh boy, eating anything from Shortstop is basically time travel. One taste and I'm back at uni, fuelled by soy chai lattes with honey (early days) → an alarming number of soy lattes (masters degree). Bad circuit diagrams everywhere. Me: "just one donut break!" Also me, some hours later - sanity questionable, whichever poor study buddy I dragged along nodding through my monologue about PCBs and menty Bs (the Venn diagram was basically a circle). Throwback to when I actually knew how to use KVL and KCL. Currently typing this in a bootleg MATLAB tee, because apparently that era never really ended.
So when I saw they had made a dark roasted peanut butter, and this was, in fact, available to purchase by one fangirl (me), I basically yelled "Yes, chef!" to no one in particular. And let me tell you, it's every bit as gorgeous as I hoped.
The roast - pretty deep. Low-frequency resonance deep. Like how I like my whisky, it is smoky, toasty, and slightly bittersweet: the kind of flavour that makes you pause, nod thougtfully, and say "Ah, so this is flavour". The texture is chef's kiss: spoon-offable, with tiny peanut bits that are both delicate and punchy.
Flavour-wise, it's giving grown-up nostalgia. Super reminiscent of the flavour of Shortstop's peanut butter-based donuts, but denser, darker, and a little more introspective. There's a subtly coffee-adjacent bitterness that plays very nicely with the natural sweetness of the peanuts. It's peanut butter with range, like it's been through something and come out better for it (relatable!!!). This peanut butter is nostalgic, grounded, and (maybe) (definitely) a smidge over-caffeinated.
P.S. While you're at Shortstop, please do yourself the favour of getting their honey and sea salt cruller - I still stand by it as one of the best desserts you can find in Melbourne's CBD. Golden, airy, salty-sweet perfection. You are so welcome! 🍩
