What's under the Cake Dome Sunday #9: Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Cake

Happy New Year!  It was in September when I posted my last "Cake Dome Sunday" post.  Rest assured, the Mister has not been mistreated or neglected by lack of desserts.  We both over indulged during the Holidays.  But a treat a week sounds reasonable so I'm ready to start up "What's under the Cake Dome Sunday and with this 9th Cake Dome Sunday post I present a decadent Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake topped with miniature Reese Peanut Butter Cups candy.

In addition to Pinterest to find good recipes, I love browsing Annies Eats blog for some wonderfully delicious food and desserts as well as good tips for baking success she offers.  This Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Cake is one of Annie's and you can find her post about it HERE.

This morning I promised The Mister I'd make him something special and since we both are a little crazy/nuts over chocolate/peanut butter mixture, this recipe really fits the bill.  As I mentioned, one thing I like about Annie's blog are the simple tips she gives for baking success.  For example, in this recipe when you prepare your baking pans I have always buttered and then dusted them with flour.  Annie recommends for a chocolate cake to butter and line the bottom of the pan with Parchment paper and dust with cocoa.  Afterall, it IS a chocolate cake so you might as well dust with chocolate instead of flour which would leave a pastey white on the outside of your cake when you turned it out.

 

In preparing the chocolate cake batter you first whisk cocoa powder, expresso powder with boiling water.  This made a ganache-like chocolate base.  It was so smooth and silky.  Don't make the mistake of licking the whisk quite yet though.  You only have bitter baking cocoa and water and coffee in the bowl.  Ewww...very bitter at this point.  Do you know how I know that?  Uh huh!  Yep!  I did!

 

Carry on mixing the cake ingredients which include sour cream, butter, butter, eggs flour, soda and salt and vanilla.  You'll be left with a batter that is smooth and thick and rich.  It is more of a torte but not quite a brownie.

Now you've popped your layer cake pans into the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and then let the layers cool for at least 30 minutes in the pans and then turn out onto your cooling racks until they are completely cool.  Now you can begin preparing the Peanut Butter Frosting.  Yummmmm...

 

You begin the frosting by beating copious amounts of butter and peanut butter together until they are light and fluffy.  In a separate bowl you whisk whipping cream (heavy cream - 35%) with 1/4 cup of icing sugar until lovely soft peaks form.  Put that bowl to the side and continue on with the bowl with your peanut butter/butter mixture and add the remaining icing sugar, vanilla and salt.  Once it is all nice and fluffy (you'll beat it on high for about 5 minutes) then you'll fold in the whipped cream you whipped up previously.

The cake layers are cooled and it is time to frost.  You can see by the photo below that the cake layers are not puffy like a regular cake.  The cake is very moist and doesn't raise up.

 

It is TIME!!  Time to frost the cake!  It was so hard for us to keep our fingers out of the frosting.  It is SO GOOD!!

One layer frosted...time to frost the second.

 

 

I should have mentioned that in the original recipe this is a three layer cake.  I cut back the cake ingredients by 1/3 and made it as a two layer cake. 

Once the cake is completely frosted I topped it off with miniature reece peanut butter cups. 

 

This cake needs to chill in the refrigerator for a while but I couldn't wait to cut a slice so that is why the frosting smeared up the side...not that that hurts the taste.  I was just hoping I would get a "neater" photo for you.  But sometimes one just cannot wait to taste...and YES, the Mister had his fork reading and waiting.

If you would like the recipe click HERE and you'll see Annie's wonderful recipe.  She has a printable format at the end of her post too.

 

Enjoy!!  I know you will!

Until next time,

Cheers!

 

Jennifer