Where and How to Celebrate National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day

Juice Generation's peanut butter muffin (Image: Juice Generation)

How much do Americans love their peanut butter? Consider: We eat 3 pounds per person every year. That’s about 700 million pounds — enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon (and make it pretty sticky in the process).

If you’re one of the millions who never lost their taste for PB & J, you’ll want to know that Sunday, March 1, is National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day. While the obvious place to make a peanutty pilgrimage — Peanut Butter & Co. — sadly went out of business in 2016, there are still places great and small to get your fix in the metropolitan area.

Places like Juice Generation, which has installations all over town. Those who know the bakery know that its peanut butter muffin comes pretty close to nirvana. The treat is slathered with a big dollop of the good stuff, which reinforces the peanut buttery goodness, and also flashes hints of banana and strawberry. Perhaps the most amazing feature of the muffin is its unexpectedly low calorie count: a mere 380 calories.

If your preference is to cap off a memorable meal with a peanut butter extravaganza, head on over to Bagatelle, in the Meatpacking District. There you will find among the dessert listings an item given as Tarte Myrtilles et Beurre de Cacahuètes. That translates to peanut butter tart, with berries, nougatine, and vanilla mousseline — which translates in turn to heaven. Bagatelle, 1 Little West 12th Street, 212-488-2110.

If you want in on Two Little Red Hens’ peanut butter fudge swirl cupcake meanwhile, you should probably contact the bakery the minute you finish reading this sentence. The confection unites chocolate cake, a peanut buttercream filling, and a peanut butter chocolate fudge swirl frosting. Two Little Red Hens, 1652 Second Avenue (at 86th St.), 212-452-0476.

For a peanut and chocolate rush not so quite intense, but nevertheless memorable, stop by a branch of Levain Bakery for one of their unforgettable dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookies — moist, decadent, and liberally studded with semi-molten peanut butter chips.

Image: Levain Bakery