Food is the most central thing to the lives of human beings. A person must eat to live, but a large part of the population eats for more than survival. Cuisine has become an art over millennia of refinement. Going from having working appendices that aided in the digestion of raw meat until now, where you can get a cheeseburger at a half-dozen different places within a half-mile radius requires a bit of a journey. Sometimes, that journey takes you to sublime places, like the prix fixe at The French Laundry, or to the gutters I take my palate into. That’s right; this is another treatise on gonzo trash cuisine. Buckle the fuck up, friends.
This time around, I’m taking a look at the favorite of trick-or-treaters at Halloween time, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Invented in Hershey, in the heart of Pennsylvania, the cups are the perfect marriage of chocolate and peanut butter. A rich, sweet patty of peanut butter encased in a just-thick-enough shell of brittle bliss-level chocolate hits every intersection of decadence for dessert and snack enjoyers alike. In this era of experimentation and hybridization though, leaving perfection well enough alone is not nearly enough. The HB Reese Company has started to put things inside of an enlarged version of these cups in addition to the peanut butter.
Generally, these additions have been welcome. If you’re a multibillion-dollar confectionary company, you're not going to release inedible garbage, right? Right. Well, most of these big box food companies DO release garbage, but that’s by a different definition, and that debate is neither here nor there. Anyway, these options are worth weighing individually, especially as they start to get more adventurous as you’ll see later. How wild are these maniacs willing to get? Can I extrapolate to see what other options they might end up producing? Well, I’m going to try. First up:
Crunchy Peanut Butter - I mean, this is the logical first step, right? Creamy vs. crunchy is the eternal peanut butter debate, stoking as much fervor per arguer as the New York vs. Chicago pizza debate or the pineapple on pizza one, even if it’s less of a hot war. If you want my take, I’m a coward agnostic who likes both. You don’t to 300 lbs. plus without casting a wide net, okay? Anyway, there’s not much different between a creamy and crunchy peanut butter cup in flavor. The arena of difference is the texture, and it’s a big one. Creamy cups have a smooth and slightly crumbly texture, one that has been trademark for about a century now. It works for a reason. Crunchy cups? It’s like a creamy cup only with shrapnel in it. Shrapnel is not good. I’m sure people will fight me on this, but in this specific question, creamy is superior. Next.
Reese’s Pieces - “Oh, you like peanut butter? I’m gonna put peanut butter candies inside your peanut butter cup.”
In an upset though, you can tell the pieces apart not just for the texture of the hard candy shell and the more densely packed peanut butter, but the peanut butter inside the pieces tastes different, sweeter, than the main filling. If you’re not a fan of sweet, then this might not be for you, but not me. I like sweets. Next!
Pretzel - Now HERE’S a texture contrast I can get behind. Pretzels, at least the ones you find in these cups, are generally flavor neutral, but unlike crunchy peanut butter, the little bits of pretzel are satisfying to crunch and won’t leave you with stinging jabs in your gums. Plus there’s just enough salt that it enhances the overall flavor, the same way those five or six little specks of Maldon salt make those dark chocolate caramel squares pop off in a huge way. If salt makes things better, then the next one should be really good, right? Well…
Potato Chips - This is the most recent addition into the Reese’s pantheon. People have reacted to it like it’s some kind of abomination, but let’s not pretend that people haven’t been mixing sweet and salty together for ages, okay? In theory, this is on the same level as dipping a Wendy’s french fry into a Frosty. In execution though? The chip gets lost. If you take smaller bites, you might miss some of the salt. It’s a good idea with bad execution.
Okay, so those are the existing variants. How zany can Reese’s get? Allow me to imagine, starting cold…
Ice Cream - Going frozen is the next logical evolution. Wawa at least already puts the cups in the fridge case and sells them chilled as a nice little treat for friends to eat. How about making the chocolate shell a little larger and filling the middle with nice, fluffy peanut butter ice cream? I mean, you can’t lose. Speaking of no Ls…
Jelly - Why has no one thought of this yet? Peanut butter and jelly comprise the combo that is the benchmark for other comparisons. It might not change much in the way of texture, and it might make the thing undeniably sweet, but how you can leave that combo on the bench is just beyond me.
Pickles - This is not a shitpost. I swear. Triple X, an infamous burger joint on the Purdue University campus, puts peanut butter on a burger. Peanut butter is a staple ingredient in Thai food. Chocolate is an ingredient used in savory Mexican cooking, especially to the south. Obviously, there’s a lot more sugar in a peanut butter cup than in anything else, but I mean, the contrast in flavors are there: the deep nuttiness of the peanut butter, the acid splash from the pickle, the overall sweetness from the chocolate. Yeah, I’m an unabashed mark for pickles. I’ve been drinking a pickle beer lately, and it’s FUCKING DELICIOUS. Ask me about it sometime. I don’t see why you wouldn’t go for a pickle inside a peanut butter cup.
One of Those Really Thin Reese’s Cups - “Yo dawg, I heard you liked peanut butter cups.”
It’d be like a nesting doll! C’mon. C’MON.
What would be your idea for an add-on in a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup? Drop a suggestion in the comments!