Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum

I love international cuisine, but when it comes to peanut butter, I’m as American as apple pie. Or maybe it should be changed to as American as peanut butter. Peanut butter seems to be the great divide between American and European taste. I’m sure they’re out there but I don’t know a single European who would prefer peanut butter to hazelnut paste in fact for many it isn’t even a contest—they wouldn’t consider eating the stuff in the first place. Quel domage!

My favorite recipe in The Pastry Bible is the peanut butter and chocolate mousse torte and not surprisingly Fine Cooking magazine chose that recipe to be featured in one of their Best of the Best cookbooks as their favorite recipe too. In my upcoming Rose’s Heavenly Cakes there will be a terrific combination of spice cake and peanut buttercream.

Of course peanut butter also shines in savory dishes as was amply demonstrated by several of America’s top chefs at a recent peanut butter party hosted by the National Peanut Board. I’m posting some of my favorite recipes from the event below except for one which I must tell you about instead as it requires special food service ingredients and machinery—the peanut cotton candy. How chef Linton Hopkins, from Atlanta, Ga. managed to capture the ethereal texture of cotton candy and the full flavor of peanut butter is nothing short of culinary alchemy! One of his secrets is using roasted peanuts for the oil used in the mixture. I’m not going to go on raving about each recipe as I wouldn’t be posting them if they were anything short of fantastically worth making yourself!

Rose and Linton

Suvir and three dishes