I have to thank Cybele for reviewing this bar first (be sure to read her review here) because she brought the bar to my attenion. The PB&J bar is Trader Joe's second original bar and features peanut butter, milk and dark chocolate, raspberry jelly and potato chips. (Yes! Potato chips!)
The bar's biggest layer is the peanut butter layer. Embedded into the peanut butter are small pieces of the potato chips. I had been hoping the peanut butter would be more like the PB in the amazing peanut butter cups they sell, but I found it a little different. The peanut butter in this bar is roasty, lightly salty and otherwise a little creamier then I like in peanut butter -- but the potato chips add a nice little crunch, although not much flavor.
The chocolate is just kind of meh. Much like Cybele, I couldn't tell you where the dark chocolate is, either. If I had to guess, I think it is a very thin l.ayer directly under the jelly. The milk chocolate is a little too sweet and otherwise non-remarkable. There's nothing wrong with it -- it's just kinda forgettable.
My favorite part is the raspberry jelly layer. It's a solid jelly -- like what you would find in TJ's addictive jelly rolls (available in orange and raspberry), or even in the German Raspberries. It's seedless (which is good, as I HATE seeds). It's tart and a lot like jam. I actually would eat just a slab of the jelly.
I liked it enough to almost finish it, and it was better than last year's Lumpy Bumpy bar. That said, I don't think I would rush to get another. It's not bad; it just doesn't rock my world.
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Trader Joe's
That's so weird, yours is upside down from the one that I tried, which had the jam on the bottom.
ReplyDeleteEmbarrassingly enough I didn't catch that until you pointed it out...
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought we took pictures of the bar upside down-- and while that still might have been the case a don't think it is. When we looked at the shots we didn't use, and thinking back to when I ate the bar it's self last night, the jelly side had what appeared to be more of a raised surface as opposed to the flat layer of chocolate that the peanut butter sat on.
My bar also seems to have a thicker layer of chocolate on top of the jelly then your bar did.
I wonder if the differances in the bars is on purpose (as in TJ's changed the formation for whatever reason) or if it is just a manufacturing anomaly?