In my mind, nothing says “I love you” and “happy 17th birthday” at the same time quite like this:
Luckily my now 17 year old brother (gahhh I’m old!) feels the same way as I do about Reese’s peanut butter cups and frosting, especially frosting. (He’s known to eat the frosting off his piece of cake and leave the rest)
Ever since I saw this recipe on Picky Palate back in the beginning of September, I knew it would be perfect for Scott’s birthday. I changed a few things from her recipe, filling the layers with peanut butter frosting instead of cream cheese frosting and decorating the top with crumbled peanut butter cups.
Scott was very happy with his Reese’s cake, as I assume anyone with taste buds would be. There’s something special about the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. It makes people do crazy things. Like stealing peanut butter cups off a cake before its cut…
But he’s the birthday boy, so I let it fly. Check out the cool color flame candles my mom bought. (If you can take your eyes off the peanut butter/chocolate/cream cheese frosting for just a moment)
Ok, time to finally take a look at the inner workings of this beauty…
That’s a whole lot of richness there. And calories. Be sure to have a tall glass of milk and a treadmill nearby!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake (recipe thanks to Picky Palate)
CHOCOLATE CAKE:
1 box Devils Food Cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup water
8 oz sour cream
1 small box chocolate instant pudding mix
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 bag mini Reese’s peanut butter cups (for decoration)
1 can cream cheese frosting (for outside of cake)
PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING (for filling):
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
For cake:
– Preheat oven to 350 degrees
– Mix together cake mix, eggs, oil, water, sour cream, pudding mix, and chocolate chips. (I think leaving out the chocolate chips would have helped make the cake not as overwhelmingly rich. But if you love your chocolate, keep em in!)
– Divide batter evenly into 2 well greased round 9″ cake pans
– Bake for 30-35 minutes and cool completely.
For frosting:
– Blend together sugar, milk, butter, peanut butter and vanilla until smooth. (Add more milk for a thinner frosting and more sugar if you want it thicker)
For assembly:
– Cut each cooled cakes with a serrated knife into halves, creating 4 layers
– Use 1/3 of peanut butter frosting between each layer
– Cover the top and sides of the cake with cream cheese frosting
– Decorate as you wish with peanut butter cups! I cut peanut butter cups in half to create the border around the top. For the “17” I cut the sides off some peanut butter cups to make rectangular pieces. For the crumbly peanut butter cup topping, I put peanut butter cups into a blender to crumble them and sprinkled them on top.
Enjoy!
wow, I wish I was ur bro
Oh wow. This may just have to happen…
I made this cake for my roommates birthday a couple months ago, and it was AMAZING! Really, no other way to describe it!
I really love all of your recipes, especially anything tooth/dental related (I am a 4th year dental student) and often forward them on to other people to try!
Thanks for the awesome recipes and study breaks :)
I made this cake for my mom bday a few days ago. It was so good, so moist just delicious. Everybody’s loving the cake and were not really chocolate cake fans. But the peanut butter frosting and the cream cheese frosting makes it so good. Thanks for the recipe and for making this website.
Man that looks good! You are a very talented person. Do you also do the photography for this page? That’s also very well done!
I’ve admired this recipe for a long while and am finally going to try it for a friend’s birthday this weekend. (yay!) I just notice that the cream cheese frosting recipe isn’t included on the page. Do you mind posting?
Erica — May 29th, 2014 @ 2:04 am
Yayy I hope you enjoy it! Here’s the link to the recipe: http://www.ericasweettooth.com/2009/11/velvety-birthdays.html