Pic's Crunchy Peanut Butter

Rating: 6/10

• Served with: Toasted Abbott's Bakery Country Grain bread; sliced overripe banana; ground cinnamon and cinnamon sugar
• 🥜 Category: Peanut, Crunchy, Plain
• Country of origin: New Zealand

My first review of a nut butter from our Kiwi neighbours! Expect there to be more soon, as (spoiler) I'm a fan of Pic's and Fix and Fogg nut butters.

My partner is a crunchy peanut butter person, always. (I'm mostly a smooth person but also a crunchy peanut butter with jam person - actually, it doesn't matter, I like both.) One of my favourite things to do on a Tuesday night is scour both the Woolworths and Coles 'sneak peek' catalogues for the upcoming week (FYI - new weekly specials drop on Wednesdays) and circle the best deals: when a good peanut butter is half price, guess what is going straight to my pantry the next day.

Anyway, when Pic's was a half-price special I alerted him to this good news, as I remember really enjoying the smooth variety, and he went and bought the crunchy version. When I had breakfast at his the other day you bet I had to snap a pic and write out my thoughts.

Is there such thing has too crunchy a peanut butter? I think the answer to that might be yes, because this was ridiculously hard to spread! I of all people would know how to store natural peanut butters - but after what seemed to be hours of stirring, shaking, and flipping upside down - the texture wouldn't budge. It's so solid! It's like whole peanuts smooshed into a jar with some salt and minimal oil.

Pic's crunchy peanut butter: 1, toast: 0. Lots of crumbs flying around everywhere. Bread structure holding on for dear life. Unfortunate, because the taste was good, as I remember: enjoyably salty, obviously peanut forward (without the dark roasted taste I'm now really used to).

I'd try it in a peanut sauce next time, when spreadability would not be an issue, but as a breakfast staple or dessert ingredient I cannot rate. I have since seen a 'smunchy' version which I am keen to try...

Clif Bar Crunchy Peanut Butter

Rating: 8/10

• Served with: N/A
• 🥜 Category: Not nut butter, Snack, Sports nutrition
• Country of origin: USA

For those of you who aren't familiar with them, Clif bars are flavoured, oat-based energy bars, generally with some added soy protein, that are held together and sweetened with some kind(s) of syrup.

They have been getting some flack recently for their macros, because some individuals seem to think they are comparable to a regular whey protein bar. Spoiler alert: yes, they advertise that they contain protein - but they also all have some kind of endurance sport depicted on the packaging (hiking! biking! running! tennis!). There's a time and place for high-carb, high-energy snacks!!! Prime example: me today before my tempo run (200m repeats) (gross). Another example: me on Saturday at a water fountain, mid-18k and overheating because I'm not a summer runner, absolutely needing to smash a chocolate GU Energy Gel (basically chocolate syrup in a sachet), shortly before a brown snake sighting got me fired up and raring to run home very fast anyway (nothing like adrenaline to get you through a long run!) (just kidding - I do not recommend).

With that out of the way, I love a Clif bar. When they are half-price at the supermarket you bet I'll pick up a couple, if there are any left. They are dense and chewy, and I highly recommend you be within reach of some water to guzzle down with it as they are not easy to eat mid-run/cycle. Though that sounds like a drawback, it's also the selling point: it means a Clif bar is really satisfying when I need a more significant pre-workout snack, and I always feel well-prepared to smash a workout.

As far as energy bars go, this one is yummy and very easy to understand. It does what it says on the tin. Like all Clif bars I've tried, it tastes like real food, which I cannot say about many sports supplements. It's got a sweet, peanut butter-y combo going on, and doesn't leave a bad aftertaste. From the ingredients list, it looks like it's sweetened with brown rice and cane sugar syrups as well as date paste, which means that the sweetness is noticeable but doesn't overwhelm you. It decidedly tastes like peanut butter, but isn't as peanutty as personally I would like - I am known to also enjoy a nut bar as a pre-workout snack - but in this context I feel that's understandable.

As far as Clif bars go, this is one of my favourites, my one gripe being the naming of the bar: don't expect crunchy peanut butter. No Clif bar I've ever had has been crunchy. If you want crunchy, just go for a nut bar, but if you want a peanut butter flavoured oat bar, go for this one.

(Bonus: most flavours of Clif bar are vegan/plant-based. No upset tum for me from dairy. Win!)

Justin's Cinnamon Almond Butter

Rating: 6.5/10

• Served with: Stovetop oatmeal porridge (made with lactose free dairy milk and sweetener), cinnamon, Chobani Fit salted caramel Greek yoghurt, sliced strawberries, sliced banana
• 🥜 Category: Almond, Smooth, Flavoured
• Country of origin: USA

OK, OK, OK. I couldn't talk a big game about my 'famous stovetop oatmeal porridge' and not actually make it for breakfast sometime this week. Saw a perfect opportunity when I looked at my work calendar first thing in the morning and found a very chock-a-block morning awaiting me. CoolGruel/Fuel to the rescue.

I couldn't be bothered bringing back entire jars of nut butter this time since I was only in San Francisco for a short business trip. I only found 3 types of Justin's sachets when I went to the Safeway closest to my hotel so sadly this is the last of my mini-haul. As predicted, though, it turned out to be my favourite.

Texture was pretty similar to the Justin's Maple Almond Butter, a slight graininess as is expected from an almond butter, but I find it's much less noticeable if you use it as a topping on oatmeal rather than on toast (even adds a bit of a contrast). This one seemed to be even more homogenous/consistent than the other one though - points for this.

As I've found with the other Justin's products I've tried, the advertised flavouring was quite mild; I definitely had to enhance my breakfast with a generous dusting of cinnamon of my own. I have read online reviews saying that it's not a bang for your buck product - I don't remember how much I paid, and for the purposes of this blog I didn't prioritise this - but I do see what they mean.

All in all, not a bad little nut butter number. If they had these next to the oatmeal bar that some airport lounges have, I'd definitely add some on top of my bowl, along with that really sweet compote they often provide (too specific?).

Mayver's Dark Roasted Smooth Peanut Butter

Rating: 10/10

• Served with: Homemade choccy protein spread (vegan chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, sweetener, a dash of flavour enhancer) & sliced banana, toasted Helga’s wholemeal & seeds bread
• 🥜 Category: Peanut, Smooth, Plain
• Country of origin: Australia

This is my Platonic ideal of a peanut butter. Perfect, absolute, eternal(ly stocked in my pantry).

I was going to make my famous stovetop oatmeal protein porridge (or the baked version) for breakfast this morning. Proatmeal is my favourite kind of breakfast before a long day at the office when I’m not sure I can create a balanced snack to get me through the morning, or at least squeeze something in before a lunchtime run. Perhaps in an alternate universe (aka the weekend) I would also have also made a berry compote to go with it.

But alas. I was tired and decided to sleep in for an extra 10 minutes - which meant I was multitasking and had to go for the old faithful morning toast (but with added protein). That’s the thing, though - this beautiful gorgeous divine nut butter is the workhorse of my pantry. It’s delightfully peanutty - it is a peanut butter for peanut butter lovers, all punchy peanut and no gimmicks. It works a treat dolloped on top of my porridge to add some saltiness and richness to balance the sweetness of whatever seasonal fruit I choose to pair it with (spiced pears or apples in winter; tart berries in spring; a tropical mix of mango and pineapple in summer; bananas any time). You can taste the peanut through something as rich as the umami-laden chocolate protein spread I concoct in the morning. The texture works to make a quick peanutty sauce for no-fuss stir-fries.

Yes, it is a natural peanut butter and does not fit the ‘never oily, never dry’ slogan - like any natural peanut butter it requires some love after leaving to sit in your pantry for a little bit. But love takes work, and if you take care of your jar of Mayver’s Dark Roasted Smooth Peanut Butter by flipping it once in a while, or stirring it with your butter knife every time you need to use it (bonus - if you get too much on your knife it’s a chef’s snack), it will love you back.

Highly recommend for anyone who wants to take their peanut butter obsession to the next level.

Ole Smoky Peanut Butter Whiskey

Rating: 2/10

• Served with: N/A
• 🥜 Category: Not Nut Butter, Alcohol
• Country of origin: USA

Came across while at the grog shop and couldn’t resist a sample of this peanut butter flavoured whiskey from Tennessee.

Look, I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the concept of a cocktail using peanut butter whiskey… but this is truly overpriced for what you get (at least in this country). Cough syrup texture. Smelled like an artificial gourmand candle. The base is corn and you can tell because the primary tasting note is overwhelmingly sickly sweet caramel popcorn. (It tastes like you tried to melt Butter Menthols in a pan of popping corn like I remember some 5-minute tutorial video tried to convince the internet was a good idea.) And it did not leave a nice aftertaste!

May be worth a purchase for a themed house party, and I can see this working with something really dark and bitter (coffee?) but as it is I can’t give it a passing grade.

Justin's Honey Peanut Butter

Rating: 5/10

• Served with: Sliced strawberries and sliced banana & cinnamon on on toasted Helga’s wholemeal & seeds bread
• 🥜 Category: Peanut, Smooth, Flavoured
• Country of origin: USA

Full disclosure that I will be harsher when rating peanut butters because it's my favourite and that is probably what I will be reviewing the most!!! (Maybe a spoiler but surely you cracked it from the blog title???)

This one is average - not bad by any means but quite unmemorable. A slightly more grown-up version of that classic sweet/salty Kraft (now Bega)-style spread, with a more ‘natural’ feel. I love honey with peanut butter so I’d love to have tasted it - the flavour doesn’t come through at all, just comes off as a slight, generic, sweetness. A floral/fruity number would have been fun. Saltiness was fine, texture was ok, unsure why peanut butter would need added palm oil given it’s already more fatty than almonds (and surely peanut oil if not???). Aftertaste was slightly odd - it doesn't taste stale to begin with but it does at the end, and had a hint of unchanged oil.

Justin’s Maple Almond Butter

Rating: 5.5/10

• Served with: 2 slices of toasted Helga’s wholemeal & seeds bread; half a sliced overripe banana; cinnamon
• 🥜 Category: Almond, Smooth, Flavoured
• Country of origin: USA

The first of the sachets I bought from Safeway and brought back with me on a whirlwind trip to the States!

Subtle maple flavour from the maple sugar, not too sweet and quite a nice balance with the saltiness. Texture honestly wasn’t awful (yes, I did follow the sachet directions!) for almond butter, but this was probably because of the added palm oil. Still snagged the bread a little but no major dramas. No staleness but flavour was unremarkable, if not a little bland. May have been nicer just with plain Greek yogurt, but that wasn’t really what I was after for late breakfast/brunch.