Chocolate Cake & Peanut Butter Buttercream

Andrea DeKeyser

January 23, 2018

3 min read

Discuss

Can we talk about my love of chocolate and peanut butter for a minute? They are delicious on their own but when paired they make the best couple. You know, that cool couple you envy. Everyone loves them. They’re beautiful, energetic and full of life. Their presence makes even the dullest party a blast to be at. Their couple name is ChocoNut. (Only because it’s slightly better than PeaLate.) This is a cake power couple.

I am a candy lover at heart. All kinds of it. Even the crappy stuff. I’m looking at you, Smarties! But, given the choice, I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS choose a peanut butter cup over anything else. I’ve done chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream and they are always a hit so I’m not sure why it took this long to put together a cake with chocolate and peanut butter. Alas, here we are and she is a beauty! This is one of my favorite cakes to date. Just so simple and pretty. And the cake… OMG. The cake. One of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever eaten. And I’ve eaten a lot of cake.

I received BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts by Stella Parks for Christmas. This was one of three cookbooks I received this year. Best. Christmas. Ever. The history behind each recipe is in the book along her rendition of the recipe. I was immediately drawn to the One-Bowl Devil’s Food Cake. I read through the recipe and decided to give it a whirl. One bowl and eggs straight from the refrigerator? I’m in. It was everything I want in a chocolate cake. Super rich, dense and moist. Definitely have a glass of milk to go with this cake. Do yourself a favor and buy the book. You won’t be sorry. The recipe can also be found online here.

The Peanut Butter Buttercream is an American Buttercream. You can find stellar recipes all over the internet. You won’t see a recipe posted here because I don’t necessarily stick to a recipe when peanut butter is involved. As in, I have never ever measured peanut butter. I know. Golden Rule of Baking blown to smithereens. I eyeball it. With the biggest spoon that will fit in the jar. I don’t want any more peanut butter in my frosting. Said no one ever.

I used a french tip to frost the beauty and left it naked. I was secretly worried that since the cake wasn’t covered in frosting that it would dry out. This cake surpassed my expectations immensely. I made it and frosted it one day. Then snapped photos of the whole cake and pieces of cake the next. On the third day I brought it to work with me. There was only a small portion left by the end of the day. It was gone the morning after that. The cake got rave reviews and I had even eaten a piece at work on the third day. It was everything I’d hoped it would be.