This $40 peanut butter pie is one family restaurant's claim to fame. Here's how I recreated it at home.
Every night the Walpack Inn sells its beloved dessert not by the slice, but as a whole pie, priced at $40.
Tucked so deeply into the woods of rural New Jersey that all cell service is lost stands a family-run restaurant that resembles a quaint log cabin. Inside, diners find themselves stepping back in time to enjoy classics, from New England clam chowder to prime rib to a $40 peanut butter pie that keeps families coming back for more.
Since the the Walpack Inn opened in 1949, the all-American pie has been a staple on its menu. Although the restaurant boasts a revolving list of seasonal favorites, its peanut butter pie was added to the menu 25 years ago and has never left.
"We're really open to someone just contributing something new to the menu," Lara Darco, general manager of the Walpack Inn tells Yahoo Life. "That's how the peanut butter pie started: Someone who was making desserts for a period of time introduced it."
"That's how our menu has evolved over time," she continues, “"someone comes [to cook] with [a recipe] and we put a Walpack spin on it, which is usually a pretty hearty portion."
Every night the Walpack Inn sells its beloved dessert not by the slice, but as a whole pie, priced at $40.
That "Walpack spin" has kept customers coming back for over seven decades, but the current owner, Jim Heigis Darco, 85, recalls the days when the restaurant was still in its infancy, back when his parents purchased the location when he was just 12 years old. "My sister and I walked outside [of the restaurant], looked at the rows of cornfields in the back and said to each other, 'My god, what are we going to do up here?'" he says. "It was a real culture shock."
Adam and Louise Darco, Jim Darco's parents, bought the restaurant and split the workload: Adam was in charge of the bar and Louise made Italian favorites in the kitchen, like spaghetti, meatballs and homemade fruit pies.
Today, the location is still a family affair with Jim Darco at the helm, his daughter, Lara, working as the general manager and his daughter, Jenny, acting as the venue coordinator. As the matriarch of the family, Jim Darco's wife fills many behind-the-scenes roles within the restaurant, including caring for the enormous plant population in the greenhouse and throughout the restaurant. She's also currently taken on the role of making homemade pies for dinner service.
While things may look a little different today, Jim Darco says he's never forgotten where it all began. "There was a little apartment upstairs where we lived," he shares. "My mother was a very good cook and my father tended bar."
After his schooling and time serving in the Marine Corps were complete, Jim Darco returned to the family business at age 24. "That's when I started building the restaurant," he recalls.
Adding on new dining spaces and a fireplace himself, Jim Darco built his business with his own hands. (At our interview, he was dusting himself clean of wood shavings, as to this day he still crafts tables for the dining room by hand.) In addition to growing the physical space, he transformed the menu into the classic steakhouse dishes enjoyed today.
It's no surprise that his mother Louise's marinara sauce is still on the menu, but Jim Darco's additions, like the famous Walpack brown bread, the 16-ounce teriyaki ribeye that's been a star since the ’60s and the peanut butter pie, have become just as beloved over the years with families who have gathered around the Walpack Inn's tables for decades.
"The peanut butter pie has a nostalgic meaning for a lot of people," says Lara Darco. "We have generations that have come here, so many people who say, 'Yeah, when I was a kid I came here, and now I bring my kids here.' We knew we could never take [the peanut butter pie] off the menu: A lot of people pick it up for special events ... 'I'm going to a family barbecue, and we have to bring a Walpack peanut butter pie.'"
The simple dessert is filled with a chilled and fluffy peanut butter center before being drowned in a rich, thick chocolate ganache — and it's kept people coming back for generations. "I think it's honestly the simplicity of it," Lara Darco explains. "The ingredients are so basic and it's not even a pie that's baked … I think that it just lends itself well to what the Walpack Inn is, which is really simple, good food. Nothing on our menu is super intricate but our ingredients are high-quality and we like to give big portions. That's what our customers expect."
According to the 2020 U.S. census, Walpack Township is home to a population of just seven people, which begs the question: What makes this peanut butter pie worth $40 and a long, out-of-the-way drive to the middle of nowhere? Even Jim Darco himself doesn't quite have the answer.
"I honestly don't know why," he says, "but it's nice that people do it. They've had it, and they want to taste it again."
After trying the pie, I wanted it to be a staple at my family events and gatherings, too, but ran into a few problems. For one, I live states away from this magical restaurant and its peanut-buttery confection, making it tough to swing by for a peanut butter pie. And secondly, the recipe is a Darco family secret that's not for public knowledge. Despite my request, the family was unwilling to spill on exactly how the pie is made.
To be able to create this pie at home whenever I'm not close enough to scoop one up, I created a copycat recipe for the Walpack Inn's famous peanut butter pie. It's almost as good as the original, but when in New Jersey, you know where you'll find me grabbing dessert.
Copycat Walpack Inn Peanut Butter Pie
Courtesy of Josie Maida
Ingredients:
1 store-bought graham cracker pie crust
2 cups heavy whipping cream, separated
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup peanut butter
½ cup of granulated white sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions:
1. Whip 1 ½ cups of heavy whipping cream until it has turned to the consistency of whipped cream.
2. In another bowl, combine cream cheese and peanut butter — I suggest a sweeter, creamy peanut butter — white sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract.
3. Once combined, fold in whipped cream until the two have become one.
4. After the mixture is combined, pour it into the pie crust and place it into the freezer to set.
5. While the pie is setting, add one cup of good quality semi-sweet chocolate chips to a glass bowl with the remaining ½ cup of heavy whipping cream. Microwave for 1 minute. Let stand for a minute, then mix to create a ganache topping.
6. Add ganache to the top of the pie in a generous layer. Add back to the fridge to set. Set for at least one hour, then serve and enjoy.
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