Peanut Butter Chocolate Frosted Cake

Happy New Year! Welcome back and I hope everyone enjoyed their Holiday season. I took so much needed time off to be in the moment this year during the Holidays. I’m excited to start out 2015 and I figured the best way to welcome back all of you readers (as well as new ones ;)) is to share a recipe. I know we all vowed to get healthy this year, workout more and all those typical resolutions we promised at the beginning of the year, but this is still a wedding/lifestyle blog and sharing delicious desserts is one of our favorite things! Plus we will get to all those healthy recipes and workouts soon enough.

I keep asking myself why I haven’t made this cake. I’ve been meaning to share it with all of you, but I wanted to try it out before and never got around to it. I found this peanut butter chocolate frosted cake recipe and photo on Pastry Affair and I apologize to all my nut allergy readers because you won’t be able to try it. I have a thing for peanut butter and chocolate so much so that every Halloween my cute little kiddo makes sure all of the peanut butter chocolates somehow make their way into a special pile for mom… got to love little Lucy Dylan 🙂

Happy Monday and enjoy! 🙂

Peanut Butter Chocolate Frosted Cake

Recipe and photo courtesy of Pastry Affair.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk

Chocolate Buttercream

• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 7-inch cake pans and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the oil, peanut butter, and sugars until uniform. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract. Gradually add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the milk, stirring until batter is uniform and smooth.
3. Divide batter between cake pans and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool to room temperature before frosting.

For the frosting:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until smooth. Beat in the cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt. Mix in the powdered sugar slowly, adding the milk gradually. If frosting is too thick, add a small amount of milk until desired consistency is achieved. If frosting is not thick enough, add powdered sugar until desired consistency is achieved.
2. To assemble, place a cake layer on a cake plate. Top cake with 1/3 of the frosting and spread evenly. Top with second cake layer and the rest of the frosting, spreading it evenly across the top and down the sides.