This would make a great birthday cake for someone who loves all things chocolate and peanut butter! I have no idea what kind of succinct name to assign to this chocolate cake… but it’s all the wonderful joyousness of chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookie dough, and peanut butter. How bad can that be? This is not a difficult cake to make, but I recommend breaking up the process since it is time-consuming. I spread the preparation of this cake out over 2 days:
Day 1 – Bake the cake layers and prepare the cookie dough, assemble, and refrigerate.
Day 2 – Prepare the frosting, frost the cake and enjoy!
For other delicious recipes made with chocolate, try my mega chocolate cookies or chocolate chip pecan brownies.
Serves 12-16
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
1 1/2 c each all-purpose flour and granulated sugar
3/4 c cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c vegetable oil
1 c buttermilk
1 c strong brewed coffee, hot
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup natural peanut butter
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 c flour
1 c chocolate chips
Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Frosting
3 c confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/3 c unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
3/4 c heavy cream or milk
1/4 to 1/3 c creamy peanut butter
Preparation
Chocolate Cake
Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare baking pans with non-stick baking spray (the kind with flour in it). I used 2 9 x 2-inch round cake pans. In a large bowl combine all of the dry ingredients (up through the salt). In a separate bowl combine all of the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients; mix until thoroughly combined. This is going to be a thin batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
In a medium bowl using an electric mixer, cream the softened butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar. Add the salt and vanilla and mix to combine, then add the flour, continue to mix completely combined. Finally, add the chocolate chips and mix for another 30 seconds. At this point, the mixture is ready to spread over the bottom cake layer. Once evenly spread, top with the other cake layer and store in the fridge to firm up.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Frosting
In a large bowl, beat powdered sugar and butter with an electric mixer on low speed until blended, then mix in vanilla and melted chocolate. Gradually beat in just enough cream to make the frosting smooth and spreadable, which for me was 3/4 of a cup. Once the frosting is spreadable mix in your peanut butter. At this point, I took my well-chilled assembled cake out of the fridge and piled all of the frosting on top, then spread out from there. (I’m not very good at cake decorating; the photograph I took of this cake is as good as it gets!)
Notes
If the frosting is too thick then beat in more cream, a few tablespoons at a time. However, if the frosting becomes too thin, then beat in a small amount of powdered sugar.