Reese's Cup Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

So you know from my last post that my mom loves French onion soup. Well when is comes to dessert her favorite combination of flavors is chocolate and peanut butter. It is not my favorite flavor combination so I don't make it very often but the birthday girl gets her favorite so off I went to find the ultimate in chocolate and peanut butter desserts. After much searching I decided on this cake from Annie's Eats and homemade chocolate peanut butter cups which I will post about later this week. Both of these came out great and she was very happy. The cake and frosting are both very rich so we had a lot of cake left over. I made mom take two big pieces home and Joe took the rest to work the next day. I think he said it lasted about 20 minutes before the plate was practically licked clean.

Now I made a small mistake while making the frosting and only put in 1 1/2 instead of 2 cups of confectioners sugar. The icing was still light and fluffy, it just had more peanut butter flavor that it probably would have if I had added all 2 cups of sugar. So I suggest you taste as you go along and stop adding the sugar when the flavor is to your peanut butter liking.

Reese's Cup Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
From Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

For the icing:
2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 cups creamy peanut butter
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup heavy cream

miniature Reese's cups, halved and/or chopped for decoration

Directions:
For the cake, center a rack in the over and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9x2" round cake pans, dust the insides with flour, tap out the excess and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper. Place the pans on a baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for about 2 minutes, until thoroughly blended into the butter. Add the eggs and yolks one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk; add the dry ingredients in 3 additions and the butter milk in 2 (beginning and ending with the dry ingredients). Mix each addition only until it is blended into the batter. Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans.

Bake for 26-30 minutes or until the cakes feel springy to the touch and start to pull away from the sides of the pans. Transfer to wore racks to cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.

For the icing, place the confectioner's sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

To assemble the cake, level each cake layer and place one cake layer on a cardboard circle covered in foil. Spread peanut butter frosting on top of the cake layer. Place the second cake layer on top of the frosting. Frost the tops and outside of the cake with remaining peanut butter frosting. Decorate with halved and chopped Reese's cups as desired.