Perfect Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
With striking dark chocolate layers, layers of silky smooth peanut butter frosting and a sophisticated chocolate ganache drip, this is not your mother’s peanut butter chocolate cake! The layers of today’s recipe are closely based off of my dark chocolate cupcakes with all the richness of my devil’s food cake, which means they’re decadent, intensely chocolatey, and moist, moist enough that you can store it in the fridge and still have the crumb melt in your mouth the next day. While I certainly don’t consider myself a decorator, I wanted today’s cake to be extra stunning and I want you to be able to pull off a cake just like the one in the photos. To help with this, I include detailed decorating instructions in the post, in the recipe, and in the how-to vide below. Let’s dive in!
What You Need
Each ingredient in my peanut butter chocolate cake recipe has been carefully selected to yield a perfectly rich and deeply flavorful, but not too sweet cake.
Flour. For a sturdier, easily stackable cake, I like using all-purpose flour here. You can substitute cake flour if you’d like, but I don’t personally feel the need. Sugar. You’ll need brown sugar and granulated sugar for the cake, and powdered sugar for the frosting. Using a combination of sugars in the cake adds some serious flavor and moisture to make for a rich cake.Cocoa powder. Use dark cocoa powder for a strong chocolate flavor that stands up against the creamy peanut butter icing. This is typically sold in the baking aisle beside other cocoa powders, but you have trouble finding it Dutch-process cocoa will also work. If you can’t find either and can only find regular, natural cocoa powder, hop over to my chocolate cake recipe and make that one instead!Butter and oil. Yes, we’re using both butter and oil in this cake! The combination of the two makes for an incredibly moist cake with an amazing flavor (which you already know if you’ve made my vanilla cake). I recommend vegetable or canola oil, but you can really use any neutral cooking oil. Buttermilk. Besides providing flavor, buttermilk also adds moisture to this cake. If you don’t have any on hand, use my buttermilk substitute.Water. You can use water or coffee (for a more intense chocolate flavor), but the liquid you use must be hot to properly react with the cocoa powder.Peanut butter. Use a smooth peanut butter and avoid the “natural” kind that separates, people have reported mixed results when using natural peanut butter.Semisweet chocolate. Any kind of semisweet chocolate will work, whether that’s chocolate chips or a chopped up baking bar.Cream. Warm heavy cream will turn our chocolate into a rich chocolate ganache for decorating our peanut butter chocolate cake. Make sure you heat it to just simmering, then immediately take it off the heat.
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Assemble and Decorate Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
SAM’S TIP BEFORE YOU BEGIN ASSEMBLY: For a professional-looking, totally level cake you will want to level your cake layers before assembling (but after they’ve completely cooled). You can do this using a cake leveler or just using a sharp knife to level the top of the cake. Bake your cakes as instructed and let them cool completely before frosting. When your cakes are almost done cooling, make the peanut butter frosting. Once your cakes are cool and your frosting is prepared, you’re ready to assemble! SAM’S TIP: If you’re adding a ganache drip to your cake, be sure your cake is chilled beforehand. Just a few minutes in the fridge or freezer can make a huge difference! Enjoy!
More Recipes for Peanut Butter & Chocolate Lovers
BuckeyesPeanut Butter BlossomsPeanut Butter BarsPeanut Butter Pie
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
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