We Try Costco's Chocolate and Peanut Butter Pie, but TikTok Made Us Do It

I love my Costco membership. Sure, you can buy paper towels and trash bags and ground beef and all the things in bulk you'd normally shop for, but there's so much more to it. The laptop I'm writing this story on came from Costco a few weeks ago when my old computer bit the dust. Same with the living room chair I'm currently sitting in. The tires on my car? Costco Tire Center. Come to think of it, almost every room in my house has something I've bought from the warehouse.

There's no escaping Costco for me. I have the Costco credit card, because as the Observer's food critic, I eat out a lot, and Costco rewards me with 3% cash back on restaurant purchases (plus 2% on everything I buy at Costco). I've even managed to work Costco into stories I've written. Costco sells a serviceable pulled pork that could get you out of a barbecue bind. And when I wrote about the beauty of sous vide, I bought my brisket at Costco. (Where did I get the pellet grill mentioned in that story? You get one guess.)

So when we learned that the latest food trend the internet is going ga-ga for is a mammoth chocolate and peanut butter pie from Costco and my editor asked for someone to take a look, I knew I was the right man for the job.

As much as I appreciate Costco, I'm not so smitten as to dedicate my social media existence to things I've found at the club, but that's what Laura Lamb has done with her TikTok account, @costcohotfinds. Costco launched this newest bakery item on March 13 (c'mon, Costco, a Pi Day launch would have been a gimme), and Lamb quickly found a pie at her local warehouse. Her TikTok review of the delicacy has been viewed over 3.5 million times.

Some on the internet have had trouble sourcing a pie of their own, but we casually strolled into the Lewisville Costco and found the bakery case nearly full of the behemoths. The label claims the pie weighs 4.5 pounds, and your wallet will be $19.99 lighter for the pleasure of taking one home. We limbered up, stretched our arms and two-hand deadlifted one into our cart.

And first things first, just how heavy was this thing? We put the pie on our kitchen scale, container and all, and were rewarded with an answer of 5.21 pounds. Ooof. Did I mention I live by myself? For all of my Costco spending, little of it is on fresh food unless I'm freezing a bunch of it or cooking for a crowd. What in the hell am I going to do with this much pie?

What Costco hath wrought is the mother of all cream pies: Mama's Daughters' or Norma's has nothing on this bad boy. Let's start at the bottom, where a graham cracker crust is tasked with holding the pie together. Next up is a layer of peanut butter cream, then a layer of chocolate cream. More peanut butter cream is piped around the edge of the pie, then more graham cracker crumbs are sprinkled on top. The only thing more decadent would have been if they rimmed the damn thing in Reese's peanut butter cups.

I've outsourced pie-making during the holidays to Costco, because its giant $5.99 pumpkin pie is delicious, and you would be hard-pressed to make one for that kind of money. Naturally, Costco's latest pie creation is delicious; Costco's bakers definitely know what they're doing. I tried bites of each of the cream layers separately, and they'd easily stand alone in their own pie. Costco's CPB (I'm forced to abbreviate now, because the sugar rush is making my hands shake) manages to be both light and rich at the same time, a regular Dr. Jekyll–Mr. Hyde act, but in pie form.

I tried to cut a perfect 1/8th-sized slice of this pie, and it was still a whopper of a serving. As I said, I live by myself, so I'm outsourcing the consumption of this pie to my friends and neighbors. If you were lucky enough to live by me, you might have gotten a call or a text too. Or, you can grab your Costco card and score one for you and yours. You'll get no shame from me.