Peanut Butter Lovers Cake

For this week’s live stream, I’m making a peanut butter lover’s cake! I altered my favorite vanilla cake base recipe and swapped out some of the butter with peanut butter! It’s decorated with a peanut butter frosting (american buttercream), honey roasted peanuts, and some peanut butter chips. The recipes can be found below:

Peanut Butter Cake Ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cup flour
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used JIF)
• 3 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup egg whites (about 7 large egg whites)
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
• 1/8 cup vegetable oil

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting Ingredients:

• 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter (Again, I used JIF)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 8 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp. heavy cream
• 2 tsp vanilla

Additional Ingredients:

• chopped peanut butter and chocolate chips
• chopped honey roasted peanuts

Tools:

• rotating cake stand
• large offset spatula
• bench scrapper
• 10 inch grease-proof cake round

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and line four 8” round pans.

Mix together all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt) in a stand mixer with a paddle until fully combined.

Mix chunks of room-temperature butter slowly into the dry mix, on a low speed. Add in peanut butter next, one spoonful at a time. Continue to mix until no large chunks of butter remain, and the mixture becomes crumbly.

Pour in egg whites, and mix on low until just incorporated.  Mix in the buttermilk in two installments, on a low speed. Add in vanilla and oil, and mix at a low speed until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then beat on medium high for about 30 seconds.

Divide evenly between the prepared cake pans. Bake for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then run an offset spatula around perimeter of the pan to separate the cake from the pan. Place cake layers on a rack to finish cooling.

While the cake layers cool, prepare the peanut butter frosting.

Cream together the butter and peanut butter on medium high for 30 seconds with a paddle attachment, until smooth. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time. Alternate with small splashes of cream. Once fully mixed, add in the cocoa, vanilla and salt, and beat on medium low until the ingredients are fully incorporated, and the desired consistency is reached. If the frosting is too thick, add in cream (1 teaspoon at a time). If the frosting is too thin, add in more powdered sugar (quarter of a cup at a time).

NOTE: When making frosting for a cake, it is important to mix the buttercream on low at the end of the process for a couple minutes, to get out any extra air that might have be incorporated during the mixing process. This will make it easier to get super smooth sides on your cake!

Once the cake layers are fully cooled, assemble the cake. Stack and frost layers with buttercream, and sprinkle chopped peanuts, peanut butter chips, and chocolate chips on top. Repeat with remaining cake layers. Once fully stacked, apply a thin crumb coat, and chill the cake in freezer for 5 minutes. Once the crumb coat is firm to the touch, apply, a second, thicker coat of frosting. Smooth with a bench scrapper. If you want to see a full tutorial for how I get smooth sides on my cakes, you can click here. I also added a buttercream boarder to the top of the cake using a Wilton 1M tip, and added some honey roasted peanuts around the base of the cake, ad also around the interior of the frosting boarded.