Bebe Zito - Peanut Butter Puppy Chow

 

Peanut Butter Puppy Chow - Peanut Butter Malted Base with Chocolate Covered Peanuts

The next flavor comes from Bebe Zito of south Minneapolis.  This one is called Peanut Butter Puppy Chow and it is one of their regular flavors.  I bought it at the scoop shop on 22nd Avenue South and Lyndale.  The flavor name reminded me of the old Purina dog food commercials from when I was a kid, but googling for videos of the old commercials led me to a ton of videos for a snack which is called puppy chow -- basically rice chex cereal (or something similar) which is first coated with a chocolate-peanut-butter sauce and then coated with powdered sugar.  Looks a bit messy to make, but it does look tasty once it's done.  How will this translate into an ice cream?  The flavor description paints this as a classic peanut-butter-and-chocolate combination some minor twists -- malt in the peanut butter base and the chocolate is covering peanut mix-ins.  Let's see how this turns out.

Removing the lid, I see a light-colored peanut-butter base with lots of chocolate-pieces drizzled on the top.  Bebe Zito likes to add toppings to the top of the pint right before placing the lid.  I like this idea.  Digging in, the peanut butter base is quite delicious without being too heavy.  I do not specifically taste the malt, but I think this is a case where the malt is used to mute the flavor of the base.  The result is good peanut butter flavor, but not too rich.  Digging in, the chocolate-peanut mix-ins are more complex than I was expecting.  It is not a simple chocolate-covered nut such as in a flavor like Vanilla Swiss Almond.  The nuts also have a caramel-like syrup on them.  I don't if it is caramel or a melted toffee.  Anyhow, the taste is great.  Like the base it creates a sweeter and less rich mix-in than I was expecting.  There is some chocolate in the mix as well, but the caramel/toffee surrounding the nuts is the more predominant flavor in my opinion.  The nuts themselves provide quite a bit of crunch.

I really enjoyed this pint.  I was expecting a simple peanut-butter chip implementation, but the mix-ins were more interesting than I was expecting.  The melted-toffee-chocolate-nut combination was delicious and went well with a muted peanut butter base.  If you'd like a lighter, sweeter twist on peanut butter and chocolate, give this one a try.