Chef Salas loves deconstructed desserts and so she broke the peanut butter down into two components: a peanut brittle base, from her grandmother’s recipe, and a peanut butter powder made with the help of a little molecular gastronomy in the form of maltodextrin. While strawberry was her jelly of choice as a child, here she the jelly is actually a trio of blackberry preparations: a blackberry sauce, fresh blackberries, and a scoop of a wonderfully light blackberry sorbet. The bread shows up as a sliver of sourdough which acts as the garnish. This is how it all comes together…

Preparation is key. The dessert station has all of the ingredients ready to go.

The chef makes a peanut butter powder streak up the middle and then places the berries down individually by hand.

Next comes the peanut brittle base, which is held in place with a little bit of the blackberry syrup.

And then the sorbet goes down onto the delicious brittle platform ready for its crown of sourdough.

Haven is a pub, so one really ought to order a beer. They have a huge selection of great beers on tap, but this dessert really calls for something special. A Berliner Weisse is a sour wheat beer enjoyed around Berlin. Technically these light cloudy beers can only be made there, so Pasadena’s Crafstman Brewery makes a special Angelino Weisse.

Haven serves this beer with a little red currant syrup mixed in, which adds a nice little complexity to the glass. The Angelino Weisse really partners well with the Peanut Butter and Jelly. Its sour notes cut through the dessert’s sweetness and cleanse the palate leaving each bite/sip tasting like it’s the first.

Beer is a far better companion for this Peanut Butter and Jelly than a glass of milk. This dessert is a far cry from the white bread, strawberry jam and peanut butter of our collective youth. Haven serves up a clever reworking of the tastes and textures of our memories and a twist on our expectations.