How to make a PB&J.

This post was too long and needed it’s own page.  The information and photos below were posted to Flickr.com on January 18, 2006 and has received more than 43,000 views.  Not bad for a food porn spread. (pun intended)

Although it is not neccesary, Welches Grape Jelly and JIF EXTRA Crunchy Peanut Butter is preferred. By no means should you attempt to do this with Jam. It has to be Jelly!

Before you do anything, place a large empty glass in the freezer. I will explain what to do with this later.

Use two large pieces of paper towel folded. The papertowel cushions the bread and also provides extra absorbancy just in case you have a “jelly slide”

Jelly with a spoon should be positioned on the left. Peanut butter with a knife should be positioned on the right. I suppose if you are left handed you could reverse these.

This is a very important process.  If not done correctly, you could suffer in the end.

Place two pieces of bread on the right side of the papertowel.  Try to avoid slices with large through holes.  The top piece should be flipped off of the top of the other piece (as shown). They should appear as mirror images.  This insures that the two pieces of bread will match when the sandwich is put together. Otherwise you could have “suspended spread”; and this could result in a bad “jelly slide”; or even worse “peanut butter grab”;  This is when the peanut butter attaches to the papertowel and you could accidentally eat some of the paper towel if you are not careful


Just flip the bread as suggested and things will not get ugly.

Spreading the peanut butter is not difficult.  First you load the knife.  I mean LOAD the knife!!   You will need plenty of peanut butter to make sure the top side of  bread is completely covered.   Spread it thick.  You will need plenty to attach to the jelly when the two pieces are put together.

Take the time now to go ahead and rinse off the knife.  Peanut butter is not easy to remove after it dries on the knife.  This is a worthwhile step.

This is a fine example of how the peanut butter should be spread on to the bread.  Notice the peanut butter is covering at least 98% of the bread.  Mmmm look at those peanuts!

Just as you were instructed with the peanut butter, load the Jelly.  Two spoonfulls of jelly usually takes care of one piece of bread.

The back side of the spoon is perfect for spreading the jelly on the bread without having to use much force.

Without taking up too much time, you want to attempt to cover the entire side of bread with jelly.  This is not always possible.  However, if you spread the jelly thick enough the jelly will shift and fill in gaps when the two pieces of bread are put together.

WARNING:  Never! Put the peanut butter slice on top of the jelly.  If the jelly slice is on the bottom, it will soak into the bread and you could have a "Jelly Wetspot"  No one likes the wetspot..  With that said, place the jelly slice on top of the peanut butter slice.  The peanut butter if applied thick enough will prevent the jelly from soaking through the bottom slice of bread.

Isn’t that beautiful!  It’s not time to eat yet.  Remember the glass in thre freezer?  Oh! You did put a glass in the freezer didn’t you?

Milk is very good when served in a frosty glass.   The frosty glass keeps the milk cold while you enjoy your sandwich.  No ice cubes allowed!

Now you can take a bite of the sandwich.  Keep the papertowel nearby just in case the jelly shifted too much and you have a “jelly slide.”

Notice how the peanut butter prevents the jelly from sliding out of the bread.  This was a perfect sandwich.  No “jelly slides” were reported.  Mmmmmm, mmmmmm just right!!!!