Make This Fried Peanut Butter, Jelly & Chocolate Sandwich This Weekend

One of my favorite dishes to make for my family is one of the simplest: grilled cheese.

While even a basic grilled cheese is good, over the years I’ve perfected my standard recipe and now use a mix of cheeses, sliced tomatoes and good sourdough bread that crisps up beautifully. And while not traditional, I like to use olive oil instead of butter to fry the sandwich.

But after reading Australian pastry chef Darren Purchese’s new cookbook, Chefs Eat Melts Too: A Pro’s Guide to Reinventing Your Sandwich Game, I now realize that I still have a lot of work to do on my grilled cheese. The book includes dozens of recipes for just about every kind of grilled sandwich and it has given me new found inspiration and a range of ingredients to test out. I somehow don’t think my family will mind.

There’s even a whole section of decadent dessert sandwiches. They owe as much to French toast as they do to grilled cheese. His Peanut Butter, Raspberry + Milk Chocolate Melt should become a classic. As you can imagine from its name, it’s essentially a fried peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich with fresh raspberries and a chocolate sauce for dipping. It’s so simple it pains me that I didn’t think of making it before. Now, I can’t stop thinking when I can make it next!

Peanut Butter, Raspberry + Milk Chocolate Melt

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 slices Brioche loaf
• 4.5 oz Peanut butter
• 4 Tbsp Raspberry jam
• 16 Raspberries, halved
• 2.75 oz Unsalted butter, softened
• 1 lb 5 oz Callebaut Origin Java 32-percent Milk Chocolate (chips), melted for dipping

DIRECTIONS:

1. Liberally spread peanut butter evenly onto four slices of the brioche. Spread the raspberry jam on the remaining slices and evenly distribute the halved raspberries on top. Sandwich the peanut butter and raspberry slices together. Make four sandwiches in total and butter the outside of each.
2. Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Cook the sandwiches for 4 minutes on each side to obtain a golden exterior. Remove the sandwiches from the heat and allow them to cool before cutting them into strips, or in half lengthways. Serve with the melted milk chocolate for dipping.

PRO TIPS: Salty peanut butter works really well with the tart raspberries. Brioche is key and milk chocolate makes the whole world a better place. Use smooth or crunchy peanut butter, whatever your preference.

Recipe excerpted with permission from Chefs Eat Melts Too by Darren Purchese, published by Hardie Grant Books August 2018, RRP $19.99.