Oh, the Places We'll Go: Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

These days I am always looking for a reason to cook something--anything. Because if I don't have a reason then I'll just bake whatever I want and either a) I eat it (BAD!) or b) it goes to waste (WORSE!). So I am constantly searching for something/someone/inanimate objects to cook for.

Mine and Adam's friend Steve-O's birthday is today (Happy Birthday Steve!), and over a week ago I had already been thinking in my head, "there's a reason! it's Steve's birthday! I can bake him something for his birthday!" AND plus, Steve is a good friend of ours so I just wanted to do something nice for him for his birthday. But what to bake? There's no better way to find out exactly what somebody wants than to ask them... so I did. We all were playing a speed game of disc golf (ok, the boys were throwing discs and I just caught my breath before we ran to the next hole) and somewhere in there I asked him what his favorite dessert for his birthday was. He said his grandmother used to make him peanut butter chocolate cakes for his birthday as a kid and he really loved peanut butter and chocolate. And there you go! Peanut butter chocolate cake sounded delicious, and I had already baked a cake like this before for my sweet friend Liz L. so this was going to be a cinch! But when should I make this cake? As it turned out, his sweet fiance Michelle came into town last weekend while the boys had time off-- the perfect time to have a small celebration for his birthday! A few of us had already planned to go watch football and grill out over at Steve and Michelle's that Saturday, so when I talked to Michelle on the phone on Friday about what I should bring I offered to bake Steve's birthday cake. When I got off the phone with her I was on a mission. I immediately went to the kitchen to start baking.

For the cake part of this confection I used The Very Best Chocolate Cake Recipe from Woman's Day. To see this recipe made step-by-step refer to my post Turtle Cake a.k.a. Rachel H.'s Birthday Cake.

While the cake was baking I began making a sauce to pour over the hot cake when it came out of the oven. For the sauce...

in a medium saucepan melt together 3 large reese's cups with two tablespoons of butter.

This is what it looks like melted.

When the cake comes out of the oven turn the cake out onto parchment paper lined plates. Then...

using a knife, poke slits into the top of the cake. The slits should be about one inch apart.

Pour half of the hot sauce over one hot cake round. Repeat with the other cake round.

Spread the sauce over the entire surface of the cakes using the back of a spoon. Let cakes cool completely.

When the cakes are cool whip up the peanut butter frosting... yum!

For the full recipe with measurements click here: Peanut Butter Frosting.*

*I doubled the recipe for this cake.

In a large bowl beat together peanut butter, butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and salt using a hand mixer. Beat till uniform.

Like this!

Then add in the heavy cream and beat until smooth and creamy. Mouth. Watering.

This is just a little confession of mine: I drink/sip heavy cream. Like, straight. Don't judge me.

Look at that creamy icing! Until you add the heavy cream it looks questionable whether or not this frosting is going to turn out right. But O WOW does it! Heavy cream makes everything better.

Using the icing technique like in my Turtle Cake aka Rachel H.'s Birthday Cake post, stack the cakes one by one and ice the cake's top and sides. Like this:

Ok. So at this point it was 1 o'clock in the morning and about 30 minutes before Adam and I had just gotten in from an 80's party when I decided I needed to ice this cake... then I decided it was time to go to bed. So I covered this baby up, stuck a few Reese's into the freezer and the next morning...

I removed those Reese's from the freezer.

Unwrapped them.

Chopped them up, and set them aside.

Next I made a little chocolate piping icing (for piping letters) using 1/4 cup melted semi sweet chocolate chips, 1/4 cup crisco, and 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar. I put this into a piping bag with Wilton tip #5 attached.

Then I assembled everything I needed to decorate the cake: the chopped Reese's, the chocolate piping icing, and the iced cake.

Using a toothpick I marked a circle around the top of the cake. This was so I could evenly sprinkle the chopped Reese's around the edge.

Then I used the toothpick to outline the letters I wanted to pipe... I'm not very good at the whole piping letters thing. Most people could probably just pipe them without tracing them first. But, yeah, I can't do that.

Here is where I started piping letters!

Shew! Glad that's over! Now for the easy part.

I sprinkled Reese's around the top edge of the cake

and the bottom edge of the cake.

And because I had so much extra piping icing I decided to pipe little pearls around the top...

and the bottom of the cake.

Tah-dah! The finished cake! I have to say one of the best things about this cake, beside the fact that it tastes amazing, is the smell... oh my goodness! the whole kitchen smelled like peanut butter and I didn't mind one bit!

This is some of the gang over at Steve and Michelle's watching football. I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of all of us!!! I got distracted I guess, what with the hamburgers, hotdogs, buffalo chicken dip, and cake. This picture is missing Juliana, Michelle, Steve... oh yeah and me. I'll do better next time!