Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cake

I love my cousin Carly. She's one of my favorite people. She's sweet, creative, and loves to hug. That being said, there's one thing I don't like about her: the fact that she's allergic to peanuts. As much as I don't like baking with nuts as an ingredient, I LOVE peanut butter and baking with it. Except I can't choose a recipe with peanut butter when picking a recipe for family gatherings (which isn't a problem: there are plenty of peanut butter-less recipes). So when my parents decided to have friends over yesterday - no family - I jumped at the chance to bake something with peanut butter. I started in the Reese's recipe folder of my bookmarks and came across this simple chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting from Dulce Dough.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cake (source)

Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, melted

Frosting

• 2 cups creamy peanut butter
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 - 4 tablespoons milk
• 6 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
• 1 package Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.2. Grease and flour (or spray with cooking spray) two 8 or 9 inch round pans. (I just traced the pans on wax paper, cut out the tracings, and lined the pans with the wax paper circles.)3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.4. Add shortening, milk, and vanilla; mix at a low speed for one minute then scrape the sides of the bowl.5. Add eggs and chocolate and mix at medium speed for two minutes.6. Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350°F for 30 - 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.7. Cool 10 minutes, then remove from pans; cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.8. To make the frosting, cream together the peanut butter and the butter.9. Gradually add the confectioners' sugar and beat well.10. Add salt and vanilla and continue to beat.11. Add milk and beat until frosting is at the desired consistency for spreading.12. Sprinkle chopped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups on top of cake and decorate as desired. (If you wish to cut the Reese's in half, I found they cut best when refrigerated, but not frozen.) (Obviously I decorated the cake differently. I just wanted to keep it simple and I liked the idea I had in my head better than the blogger's way.)

   

   

Everything was going fine until I got to the frosting. I did all the ingredients as directed but when I spread it on the bottom layer for the center, it didn't look right. So I added more milk - too much - and lots of powdered sugar. This just made it soupy I was able to spread it over the cake but not very well. My mom suggested sticking it in the fridge (I had started early and made the cake on Saturday night). Also, she tried to fix the frosting (I had pretty much given up at that point. Making frosting has never been my strong suit in baking) by putting what was left in a strainer to try and reduce the liquidiness. Her theory for the liquidiness was because I had used natural peanut butter instead of regular peanut butter (I guess it's extra oily. So stir it even if the label says you don't need to). Yesterday we finished frosting the cake and I added the Reese's decorations. I guess it turned out OK because everyone loved it.