Rare is the case when I report on a single dish, but rare is a dish such as the Pigwich. Perhaps the culinary crew at Taste didn’t realize the gem on their hands when they slapped two pig-shaped chocolate cookies between an unctuous swath of bacon buttercream, but the Pigwich quickly became the signature dessert when the cocktail lounge opened in 2009. Its retirement awhile back left Taste-ers wondering what might come next.
Matthew Daughaday now helms the Taste kitchen. As this One to Watch chef divulged in the January issue of Sauce, finding a replacement for the sweet n’ salty dessert has been on his mind. Yesterday, I learned that Daughaday had a Pigwich-inspired dessert in the research and development stage. Termed a “Potbelly Cake” (pictured), this play off of the now-defunct Hostess cupcake features a don’t-ask-about-calories bacon fat cream center and is topped with pig-shaped hard candy frosting, complete with squiggly pink icing for the tail. Look for the Potbelly Cake to be unveiled in the coming weeks. It will only be available on the weekends.
This article appears in February 2013.