Dark Chocolate Cake with Peanut Buttery Buttercream

Is there any better combination of flavors than peanut butter and chocolate?  We don’t think so, and that’s why this luscious dark chocolate cake with rich peanut buttery buttercream frosting was a huge hit in our household.

I have a sweet tooth, and in general, the Beard does not.  After I made the double banana layer cake and some chocolate scones, I’ve swayed him over to the dark side of desserts.  While he’s happy enough to eat whatever I’ll put on a plate in front of him, it’s still very rare that he actually requests I make him something sweet, especially something “fancy”.

However, an even rarer occasion presented itself to us recently: a day off together.  We don’t often get an entire day off together; we’re delighted when he can leave from his weekend shift in the early afternoon instead of dinner time.  And once he knew he was going to have the day off, he took to Pinterest for some inspiration, finally deciding that what he really wanted was a chocolate and peanut butter cake.

Let him eat cake!  Dark chocolate cake, that is.

I took to what I’ve personally started referring to as The Collection:  a shelf full of vintage cookbooks from the 20’s through the 70’s.  My first adventure into vintage recipes – the Boston cream cupcakes – turned out to be the best damned cake recipe I’d had.  Since then, I’m game to make anything out of those books.  I tweaked a dark chocolate cake recipe for my version of this cake.

Peanut buttery buttercream dreams!

While our cake design was pretty much copied from this recipe for a peanut butter chocolate layer cake, we used the same frosting recipe.  Why?  Because it’s damned good, that’s why.  The only major difference was cutting down on the amount of peanut butter cups that we used in our cake, and we had a good reason for doing so.

The frosting recipe makes a metric pantsload of peanut butter buttercream.  I’m not allowed unsupervised with a bowl of frosting.  I could use up more of it with four layers of cake instead of three.  Additionally, with that much peanut butter and chocolate flavor, adding even more peanut butter and chocolate goodies was just overkill.  

As a coworker’s daughter would have said, “I feel like I need to brush my teeth after just looking at that cake.”

Print

Dark Chocolate Cake with Peanut Buttery Buttercream

Is there any better combination of flavors than peanut butter and chocolate? We don’t think so, and that’s why this luscious dark chocolate cake with rich peanut buttery buttercream frosting was a huge hit in our household.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword buttercream, cake, chocolate, peanut butter

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Servings 8 slices

Ingredients

Dark Chocolate Cake

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsps baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 3/4 cups brown sugar packed
• 3/4 cup shortening we used butter-flavored Crisco
• 1 whole egg
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 tbsps butter melted
• 1/2 cup+1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Peanut Buttery Buttercream

• 2 cups butter softened
• 1 1/4 cups peanut butter
• 8-9 cups powdered sugar
• 6 tbsps milk

Instructions

Dark Chocolate Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease two 8″ round pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper, then grease the paper.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar until smooth.  Beat in the eggs and the extra yolks until the mixture is smooth and fluffy, then stir in the vanilla extract.  In a separate bowl, combine the melted butter and the cocoa powder until the mixture is smooth, then add to the batter.

4. Add the flour and the milk alternately in 3 or 4 portions, beating until the mixture is well blended between each addition.

5. Divide batter evenly between the two pans.  Bake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Because ovens can be weird with cooking times, you may want to check your cakes a couple of minutes before the 25 minutes is up, to better gauge your cake’s progress.

6. Cool the cakes in the pans for 5 minutes, turn out onto cooling racks and remove the paper, then invert the cakes so the paper side is on the bottom once again.  Allow the cakes to cool completely before frosting.

Peanut Buttery Buttercream Frosting

1. Combine the butter and peanut butter in a large mixer bowl and mix until well combined.

2. Add about half of the powdered sugar and mix until smooth.

3. Add 3 tablespoons of milk and mix until smooth.

4. Add remaining powdered sugar, a half cup at a time, mixing between each addition until the frosting smooths out again.

5. Gradually add remaining milk and mix until smooth, keeping an eye on the consistency of the frosting so it doesn’t get too thin.  

Recipe Notes

You may want to make the frosting before starting the cake.  Put the buttercream in the fridge to firm up while you let the cake cool completely, and take it out about 15 minutes before you start assembling the cake.  This way, the frosting is still soft enough to easily spread, but will also hold its shape if you’re piping with it.

Peanut Buttery Buttercream (and the style of this cake in general) heavily inspired by the one used in Life, Love, and Sugar’s recipe for a peanut butter chocolate layer cake.  The Beard wanted a chocolate and peanut butter cake.

Have you given this recipe a try, or do you have an idea of what could be improved?  Leave us a comment below!  We’d love to hear from you!

– Tart & Beard

The Tart

The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things.  She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.