Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake

There are few things I love more than the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. It’s been a particular favorite of mine since I was young, so much so, that I even have a top secret rating system for the variations of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Obviously, the Easter Egg version is the best, shortly followed by the Jack-o-Lantern, the Christmas tree, the miniature, and then the OG cup. I digress. Furthermore, I should warn you, this recipe will likely come with several digressions, but stick with me; solving the mysterious case of the chocolate and peanut butter birthday cake is well worth it in the end.

And now for another digression...this past summer, I found myself in the friendly town of Crivitz, Wisconsin visiting my boyfriend’s family at his sister’s lakehouse. It’s a pretty tiny town with a Piggly Wiggly and very nice people who shop at the Piggly Wiggly. It’s also home to Lake Noquebay.

During this visit, my boyfriend’s mother, Barb, was celebrating her birthday. Obviously, a birthday cake was required and since I’m a much better baker than water skier, I offered to bake the cake instead of sinking to the bottom of the lake. Here’s where things get a bit sticky, though. According to legend, Barb used to make a very dense, very moist chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting to celebrate family members’ birthdays of years past. The recipe, however, had gone missing and been long forgotten.

As any baking enthusiast would do, I immediately sat down and started interrogating Barb like I was some kind of crazy detective trying to solve the murder of a beloved birthday tradition, but all I got out of her were the following clues: chocolate, oatmeal, walnuts, and peanut butter. I gave up on my interrogations and went to the only other source I had, a very slow internet signal.

My friends, the internet is a large, mysterious place with lots of chocolate cake recipes. I researched until my eyes were dry. While some cakes were chocolate, they lacked oatmeal. And none of the recipes I found had walnuts paired with peanut butter. It was clear at this point that I was going to have to Frankenstein a recipe together and bring the legendary chocolate and peanut butter birthday cake back to life on my own.

As it’s my birthday this week, and I love chocolate and peanut butter, I’m going to make this cake for myself to celebrate. I highly recommend you bake along with me, birthday or not! As mentioned above, making the Mysterious Chocolate and Peanut Butter Birthday Cake is well worth it in the end.

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the cake…

2 Cups of Hot Coffee (like really, really hot coffee...McDonald’s lawsuit hot)

1 ½ Cups of Oatmeal (the quick kind, not the steel cut kind)

1 ½ Cups of Chocolate Chips

1 Cup of Brown Sugar

½ Cup of Granulated Sugar

12 Tablespoons of Butter (softened)

3 Eggs

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

2 ½ Cups of All-Purpose Flour

1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Soda

½ Teaspoon Salt

2 Tablespoons of Dutch Cocoa

1 ½ Cups of Chocolate Chips

¾ Cup Walnuts (optional...chopped and toasted)

For the frosting…

1 Cup of Creamy Peanut Butter (if you’re a crunchy person, go for the crunchy)

8 Tablespoons of Butter (yup, softened again)

4 Cups of Confectioners Sugar

⅛ Cup Whole Milk (you may need a little more, a little less, or none at all, depending on how thick you like the consistency of your frosting)

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

1 Tiny Pinch of Salt

Here’s how to make it:

Step 1: Set your oven to 350 degrees. While it’s preheating, chop up your walnuts and put them on a baking tray. This is totally optional. Once your oven is hot enough, put your walnuts in and toast them for about five minutes. I always try to pay super close attention to the way the nuts smell. Once you start smelling their toasty aroma, they’re good to go. Take them out, set them aside, and let them cool.

As they’re toasting, prepare your cake pans. You can use a 9 inch x 13 inch baking dish, a bundt pan, or a few round cake pans. I’m going to use some small 6 inch cake pans, because I want a tall cake with lots of frosting in between the layers. Grease them with butter or non-stick spray. Or line your pans with parchment.

Step 2: Put your oats in a little bowl with the chocolate chips and make some super hot coffee. If you’re not a coffee drinker, you can substitute this with boiling water, NBD. Pour your hot coffee over the oats and chocolate chips, then cover it with a towel to let them soak for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Step 3: While your oats are soaking, cream the brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla together in a mixing bowl. You can do this in a KitchenAid stand mixer, a mixing bowl with a handheld mixer, or like an old-school boss with a bowl and a whisk.

Step 4: In a separate bowl, mix the flour,baking soda, salt, and cocoa together.

Step 5: Mix your dry ingredients into your creamed butter blend, making sure it’s all incorporated together.

Step 6: Uncover your oats, chocolate, and coffee and give them a good stir, then add the mixture to the other ingredients, one large spoonful at a time, making sure it’s mixed before you add the next spoonful.

Step 7: Your nuts should be cool by now, so fold them into your batter. Then add the batter to your cake pans. I know a lot of people weigh these out to make sure they’re even, but I’m lazy about this sort of thing and just eyeball it.

Step 8: Bake your cakes in a 350 degree oven for about 35 to 45 minutes, using the toothpick trick to determine when they’re fully baked. I left mine in for 25 minutes, because my oven has a tendency to get hot. Then, I checked them every five minutes until I knew they were perfect. Your timing will depend on the size of your baking pans.

Take them out of the oven and let them cool in the pans for five minutes, then turn them out onto cooling racks. It’s best to let these cool for about two hours before you frost them.

Step 9: If you’re like me, you only have one mixing bowl for your KitchenAid mixer, which is kind of a bummer, but not the end of the world–definitely a first world problem. This means that while your cake is cooling, you need to either wash and dry it or you need to get a different mixing bowl, because it’s PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING TIME!

Step 10: In your clean KitchenAid or a mixing bowl, cream together your PB and Butter.

Step 11: Slowly, very slowly, add one cup of Confectioners Sugar to your PB and Butter mixture. If you add it all at once, or add it too quickly, it will fly all over your kitchen, which is not a great look.

Step 12: Add one Teaspoon of Vanilla and a teeny tiny pinch of salt. Once all of these ingredients are incorporated, check the consistency of the frosting. Go ahead and have a little taste; it’s for science! If you like your frosting a little thinner, move on to the next step. If you like it as is, frost your cake.

Step 13: This is optional! If you like your frosting a little less thick, add some whole milk to it. I recommend doing this one Tablespoon at a time until you get it to the consistency you like. As soon as it gets there, frost your cake.

Now that the mysterious case of the Chocolate and Peanut Butter Birthday Cake has been solved, add some candles, or don’t, but do dig in and enjoy! If you are enjoying this for your birthday, you don’t have to share your cake, but you do need to remember the moral of this story: write your family recipes down and keep them safe. WIthout sounding too trite, these things are pretty precious; they help us stay connected to those we love and those we want to love in the future. If that’s not good birthday advice, I don’t know what is.