Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Peanut Butter Desserts in the Napa Valley

Hello!
I love desserts!! Life is short, eat dessert first is my motto.
So I am gonna talk about desserts that I will go back for again and again and some I will not even take a second bite of in and around the Napa Valley.
We will start here and then head out to other places soon.
I do have a weakness for Peanut Butter desserts...so let's start there.

Redd Restaurant in Yountville has the BEST peanut butter dessert hands down. The peanut gianduja is to die for. (quick side note about gianduja (zhahn-doo-yah) - a smooth creamy mixture of milk chocolate and roasted hazelnut paste). Nicole Plue, the world renowned pastry chef at Redd, does an exciting play on the hazelnut gianduja with peanuts. YUM!! It is so peanut buttery, smooth and the perfect balance of saltiness. The bottom crust is made of broken feuilletine cookies and a peanut butter milk chocolate ganache. Adds the perfect crunch to this dessert. (quick side note about feuilletine (fuh-yuh-teen) -caramelized biscuits from France which are broken up into small flake sized bits )
It is served in a thin rectangular slice portion along with a mini peanut honeycomb parfait. My favorite by far.

Well, that sums up the good peanut butter desserts in the Napa Valley...there was an awesome peanut butter pie on the Mustards Grill menu a while back...but we wont talk about that now.
Please let me know if you have had a good peanut butter dessert in the Napa Valley or beyond. I would love to go out and try it.
Next topic...panna cotta.

3 comments:

  1. Oh puh-leeeze talk about the Peanut Butter Pie at Mustards. One of the best deserts ever. Whoever thought that one up deserves a chocolate covered peanut statuette! ; )

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  2. Can you post pics of these tasty treats?

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  3. Thanks for the pronunciations, for the linguistically challenged among us.

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