I have a theory that bananas lead two very different lives. When they’re fresh, they’re the responsible fruit. The one you throw into your bag before leaving the house because you’re trying to be a functioning adult who eats vitamins. But leave them on the kitchen counter for a few days, and suddenly they’re destined for greatness.
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Banana bread.
It’s a legendary career trajectory. One minute, you’re a slightly disappointing piece of fruit, and the next you’re the main ingredient in something people will happily eat three slices of while insisting it’s technically breakfast.
And now BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse has decided that banana bread could have an even more ambitious future.
As a giant cookie. Covered in Nutella. With ice cream.
I think the banana has finally reached its full potential.
What’s In BJ’s New Nutella Gone Bananas Pizookie?
The new Nutella Gone Bananas Pizookie is built on BJ’s first-ever banana bread cookie base, served warm and topped with two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, a drizzle of Nutella, and crushed hazelnuts. For anyone unfamiliar with a Pizookie, it’s BJ’s signature pizza-sized cookie dessert, served warm and designed to be eaten with a spoon.
Now, I have a few thoughts about this particular combination.
First, banana bread is already a fairly excellent invention. It’s soft, sweet, and makes your kitchen smell like you’ve got your life together, even if the rest of the house looks like a crime scene.
Second, Nutella is one of those ingredients that can make almost anything taste like dessert. Toast? Dessert. A spoon you happened to find in the drawer? Also dessert.
And third, the two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream seem like a very sensible addition. Not because this dessert needed anything else, necessarily. But because a warm cookie and cold ice cream are a combination I have absolutely no interest in questioning.
Customers Actually Chose This Pizookie Flavor
BJ’s didn’t just dream up the Nutella Gone Bananas Pizookie in a meeting room. Back in July, the chain asked customers on social media to vote on potential new Pizookie flavors. And this one came out on top.
Which tells me there are a lot of people out there who looked at the possibility of banana bread, Nutella, and ice cream in one enormous dessert and decided that was the future they wanted to live in.
Fair enough.
When Can You Try the Nutella Gone Bananas Pizookie?
The new dessert is available now at participating BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse locations nationwide, for a limited time while supplies last. It’s also included in the chain’s $5 Pizookie Tuesday promotion, which seems like an especially good excuse to make a Tuesday more interesting.
I have to admit, I’m rather taken with the idea of a banana bread cookie.
Banana bread is one of those things I tend to eat straight from the loaf, standing in the kitchen, telling myself I’ll cut a proper slice in a minute. Turning it into a warm, ice-cream-covered Pizookie feels like someone has taken that habit and given it a restaurant menu. And the Nutella certainly isn’t going to hurt.
I think the people have voted wisely.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!