Last of the full European jars, but... I saved the worst for last (because never let them know your next move 🫨).
This is somehow the worst of both worlds, as in it has the hydrogenated-oil, ultra-stabilised texture of something like Bega, but truly none of the taste??? I will tolerate a processed peanut butter when it gives me nostalgia or salt or sweetness or at least some kind of emotional payoff which this does not.
This is tasteless: the peanut flavour is on holiday, probably somewhere with the memories of me purchasing this. Alas, I am here, I am present (I have been working on this), which means I can taste this. This may be my first DNF because I'm not sure how I'm meant to use it 😞
Okay, I've truthfully been umm-ing and ahh-ing about these next couple of reviews because the spreads are not straight peanut butter and salt, but also don't quite fall into the novelty category, which has baffled me a little bit and opened up Pandora's box (am I going to start going back and reviewing Bega? Regular Skippy? Jif??? 🤔😩).
So I have tried my best: please bear with my ever-evolving taxonomy!
Bonne Maman Peanut Spread tastes more like peanut fudge than peanut butter, so that's how I'm going to review it - it's not the jar I would reach for when I want a salty peanut moment, or to use in my cooking. But if the occasion calls for spreading dessert on toast and branding it 'breakfast' (I have free will!) (this is a normal adult decision!) (toast for breakfast is S-tier!!!) then she is invited.
The texture is very spreadable: glossy, smooth, soft, and very much in the Bonne Maman universe. (Do we know that video where a drywaller spreads peanut butter onto bread? I could do that with this, easily, with a butter knife.)
It reads more like the jams and sweet spreads they are known for than a peanut butter. (The chokehold the Bonne Maman caramel spread had on me during one period of my life...) The sweetness is at a lovely level, though it does not pass the Asian "not too sweet" check. It is sweet! We have to be honest with ourselves!
This is the peanut obsessive's answer to the current pistachio spread trope / obsession. A dessert spread, a lil toast toppin' treat, if you will. And yes, I am also a sucker for the gorgeous glass jar and gingham lid combination, because marketing the dream of being a cottage witch absolutely works on me, and one day I will deem myself worthy enough to buy the Bonne Maman advent calendar ❤️
At this stage I've worked my way through most of my Europe stock and have had a fair few empty jar days recently (⚠️ almost time for another massive haul ⚠️).
This was the first peanut butter I bought: a Finnish number, though I am (now) aware that Coop is a multinational supermarket chain, so you could end up with a different iteration of the same brand product depending on the European country.
This is sound. A well-roasted peanut butter with a smooth, oily texture. Oily oily oily smooth. (If you try to pick up the jar in my house, the label peels off and your fingers get slippery.) Salted, though to my taste the salt level could be upped just a little more.🧂
This is your stock standard, staple, peanut butter, and I love how it is not trying to be anything else: some PBs simply need to be good enough for most occasions and this is one of those jars 🫶
I've been super into making weekly snacking cakes for myself recently (or, let's face it, fortnightly, because I also get through quite a few protein bars). Nutritious enough that I can have a slice for breakfast, delicious enough that it still counts as a little treat for tea.
Here is today's Frankenstein's monster - a loaf of banana bread with chia seeds, lots of peanut butter protein powder, molasses and honey, and covered in a ridiculous but necessary amount of chopped walnut / chopped roasted peanuts. ☺️
As with many things in my life, this blog will be evolving with me (although I also said this in 2024, lol). Peanut butter will still be its focus (still number one on my Myspace top friends list), and the reviews are not stopping! But my life doesn't look like it did when I started this in 2023, so why should the blog stay the same?
Other things that feed my obsession are going to worm their way on here too: recipes using peanuts / peanut butter, interesting observations, recounts of future peanut butter tasting parties - absolutely still on my backlog.
Here we are, bravely wading through the emotional archives as I clean out my chaotically organised notes apps (multiple) and trying to decode tasting notes from The European PB haul. That trip feels like a different era: a tiny sun-drenched chapter that feels both recent and very far away. Recent evidence suggests that underneath it all though I remain fundamentally the same person, i.e. someone who would book a trip around a marathon (see screenshot from a few days ago):
As we know, growth is not always linear. To quote a recent French class conversation: je suis montée... je suis descendue (oh là là, je suis tombée!). Sometimes life is just going up and going (falling) down, and maybe all we can hope for is some decentpeanutbutterreviewcontent in between (I'm working on it, OK??????).
This pot is Rapunzel's Peanut Butter Schoko-Caramel, which I bought in Berlin (ja, genau). Unfortunately, this tastes less like actual chocolate and more like fake caramel and Halloween "choc" (a.k.a. chocolate compound) with distinct notes of lipstick. It's like something you would apply to your lips in 2004 from a tiny plastic pot (or if you are me, 2026, as I am also obsessed with anything pumpkin spice flavoured and decided that the Trader Joe's cinnamon roll lip mask would fix something in me).
The texture does not help: it is glossy and thick in a petroleum-jelly sort of way, and somehow keeps its shape like lip balm. I think it's the added oil (I spy palm, sunflower, clarified butter). I wanted a fairytale but I got a nightmare 😱
Pictured are three different peanut butter jars from three very different chapters. Three nearly identical photos of jars scraped clean with commitment and true devotion.
Through it all, peanut butter remains my joy, my comfort, and my constant companion. I am choosing not to unpack whether this is a metaphor at this time 🫙
