Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple
A very special guest. Please allow me to introduce…..Jo.
We’ve had a lot of fun so far but this post? This post is school. It’s history class. It’s pencils, pens, and notebooks.
Readers may remember that back in the beginning of this healing journey, I teased that I had a friend and colleague who worked at The Factory. I’ve kept you waiting this whole time but the wait is over, edgelords. This is that post. Meet Jo, my beautiful glowing angel of a friend who worked for TCF for six years in the early aughts.
I don’t know about you but my friendships are romantic. This date was no exception. We met at The Grove in the lobby of TCF, Jo looking so fresh and put together for having just come from work. She told me that she had been fasting for two days in preparation and I believed her lol. Sometimes even I forget that women are funny! I need to add ‘killing the misogynist in my head’ to my freakin to-do list I guess.
Picking flavors is getting harder obviously because a lot more of them are off the list now. Jo remembered that I said I prefer the fruitier flavors (bc I’m queer jk) but I said no no my dear girl, don’t think of me. I get to eat all of them. It is up to you, the guest of honor, to choose whichever flavor your heart desires. Unless it’s one of the twenty flavors I’ve already had of course.
She named a few of the chocolate ones including the one that Scoop already picked (the Snickers one), eventually landing on Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple. We got it to go and sat outside in the most romantic spot at The Grove, the tables between Gucci and Michael Kors.
I could have talked to Jo all day. She told me so many interesting things about her time at TCF. For starters, the training process was intense. She had to try every single menu item and take a test on all the ingredients. At the time they had about 200 items on the menu too. Now they have 250 because they added all this Skinnylicious bullshit in response to complaints that their food isn’t healthy. YEAH I did a little of my own research! She couldn’t remember exactly but they referred to the training program as “cheesecake school” or “cheesecake academy” or something. I hope to goddess they’re still doing that. Her family helped her study on a family vacation that summer and they were all very proud of her for getting a job there. At the original location in Beverly Hills!! I obviously need to visit the original and I can’t believe I haven’t yet. I asked her if any of the BH Housewives ever came in but her time there predates RHOBH but wow wouldn’t it be cool if I went and saw Kim or Brandi?? I figure that’s who’s most likely to eat there. Maybe Kyle. MAYBE.
TCF started in 1978 as a little sandwich shop. It’s always been all about the cheesecakes though. David Overton is the guy but his mom Evelyn was really the guy behind it all and he opened it to showcase her famous cheesecakes. They operated a bakery in Detroit and he wanted to sell their cheesecakes to other restaurants in LA but get this: they were told that “no one needs more than one flavor of cheesecake”.
Ha. Ha ha ha.
So David was like fuck all y’all, I’m going to open a restaurant that actually sells THIRTY FIVE FLAVORS OF CHEESECAKE. No one needs more than one, shut the FUCK UP. And now he’s laughing all the way to the goddamn banking app on his phone.
Back to Jo. She told me they refer to the whipped cream as ‘rosettes’ of whipped cream. Delightful. She told me that she would scrape the crumbs and dregs from a finished cake into a bowl and top it with whipped cream and eat that as a little snack at work. Delicious. She told me that Leonardo DiCaprio came in with Gisele when they were dating and they requested to sit in her section but she said no (too nervous). They ordered a pizza and when it came Gisele said “oh it has cheese on it?” in a disappointed way and the server said “yes, it’s a pizza” and Leo exchanged looks with the server like “lol she’s so dumb”.
We bonded over this because when I worked at Magnolia Bakery I also served Leo and I offered him a free raisin bran muffin and he looked so confused because he probably doesn’t understand how bakeries work, free things, friendliness, bran, etc. So he’s also the dumb one. In both stories, he was wearing a baseball cap.
She also said that the work was very steady. TCF doesn’t have down time or off seasons. People stay eating at The Factory. Something else she learned at Cheesecake School is that there are dishes on the menu named after family members. And that is the story of our cheesecake today. Adam is David Overton’s son, currently on the board of TCF. I couldn’t find much info about him specifically and why this cheesecake is named after him. But I did find this old ass TCF menu.
It’s blurry but a lot of these are boozy flavors like Creme de Menthe, Amaretto, Kahlua, and Grand Marnier. The most intriguing one is the Pink Squirrel. I looked it up and the Pink Squirrel is a cocktail made with creme de cacao (chocolate liqueur), nutmeg, and creme de noyaux which is made from apricot kernels or peach or cherry pits and is almond-flavored. So, chocolate almond. Which sounds good! And the dye in the creme de noyaux is what gives it a pink color. I wish they’d bring that one back, as a treat. They could have done that for the Barbie movie! A pink cheesecake!! Speaking of Barbie. I was thinking that just like Ken’s job is Beach, my job is Cheesecake.
I also see blueberry on here which you know I’ve said before they ought to have on their menu.
Back to Jo and Adam. You all know how I feel about the kooky chocolate flavors. However. This one? Let’s just say my boy Adam knows what’s up. Let’s just say Adam got some of Evelyn’s genes when it comes to having good taste in cheesecake. Let’s just say Adam got this one right. Okay??
Check out those pert rosettes! Sexy!!
And you can see there’s actually quite a bit of cheesecake in there. Maybe what I don’t like are the flavors where there are also layers of cake? Idk for sure but I loved this one. The crust looks like Oreo but Jo hit the nail when she said it was more like a baking chocolate. Really good crust. And we kept saying the crunches tasted like Butterfinger and it turns out…that is Butterfinger! There’s nothing in the name to indicate that this cheesecake contains Butterfinger. Old Adam slipped it right past us. But I telI you what, I loved it. It looks like too much but it is not. Well, the peanut butter icing was too much. The cheesecake itself: let’s just say I wouldn’t kick Adam or this flavor out of bed.
Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple: 3.5 out of 5
Lemon Meringue
Mango Key Lime
Lemon Raspberry Cream
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle
The Original
Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple
Classic Basque
Chocolate Caramelicious Made With Snickers
Cinnabon Cinnamon Swirl
Very Cherry Ghirardelli Chocolate
Fresh Banana Cream
Godiva Chocolate
Ultimate Red Velvet Cake
Fresh Strawberry
Vanilla Bean
Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
Toasted Marshmallow S’Mores Galore
Tiramisu
Celebration
Salted Caramel
Unrelated to cheesecake, Jo recommended two movies. The East and Captain Fantastic. I trust her taste!
As you can see in the photo, I wore my ‘deeply chilled’ shirt: TCF’s clever way of saying ‘frozen’. Don’t sleep on this merch!
I also figured out how to actually email out these blog posts instead of individually texting my 7 readers every time I update. So, if you’d prefer an email, enter your address below.
Also also, I googled around and found that other people have done what I’m doing and other lists of the best cheesecakes at TCF exist already?? I didn’t look at them because I don’t want to be influenced but I happened to see that someone put Mango Key Lime at the bottom of their list, proving that lists like these are bullshit except for mine of course.