Fluffy yellow cake is iced with a peanut butter chocolate buttercream frosting. This birthday cake is the perfect treat to make for a chocolate peanut butter lover!
Happy 2nd Birthday to Chez CateyLou! My little blog is two years old today! And to celebrate, I made a birthday cake! Because birthdays need cake. And sprinkles. Lots of sprinkles!
Our absolute favorite dessert flavor is chocolate peanut butter. TheBetterHalf and I are crazy for anything with that combo. Muffins. Brownies. Cookies. Cake. I even made peanut butter chocolate chips pancakes for breakfast this weekend (must share that recipe with you ASAP!) So when I was deciding what kind of cake to bake for the big 2nd birthday, I knew that chocolate and peanut butter had to be involved – Yellow Birthday Cake with Peanut Butter Chocolate Frosting, and a little extra peanut butter filling in the center. This is one amazing cake!!
And to celebrate Chez CateyLou’s 2nd birthday, I’m hosting a giveaway of $50 to Amazon!! Scroll to the bottom of the post to join the party (aka enter the giveaway)!!
If you are a regular reader of this blog (and if you are, thank you!!) then you know that I do not bake many cakes. In fact, there is only one other layer cake on the blog – and it was to celebrate Chez CateyLou’s first birthday! I love eating cake and I think that they are so pretty, but I just never make them. They take a long time to make and I am horrible at decorating them, so they just never make it on my “to-bake” list. But since I celebrated the first blog birthday with cake, I knew that I wanted to celebrate the second one with cake too! I like this little tradition.
Last year’s cake was a chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream. So this year, I decided to do a classic yellow birthday cake and make a chocolate peanut butter buttercream frosting. SO GOOD! And just to gild the lilly, I added some extra peanut butter to the middle of the cake. This is one rich, decadent, delicious cake…we couldn’t stop eating it!
A really fun and easy trick for decorating a cake is to use a cookie cutter to make a shape with sprinkles on the icing! Just make sure you do it right after you ice the cake, so the sprinkles stick to the icing. It is such a fun way to celebrate birthdays or holidays.
I did not plan ahead and therefore did not have a 2 cookie cutter on hand. So I had a little arts and crafts session. I cut a 2-shape out of some sturdy cardboard using a razor blade (which I happen to have for scoring bread dough) and then used that as a sprinkle stencil. It did the trick, but a cookie cutter would be MUCH easier.
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 cup milk, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups (7 ounces) cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 16 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces and softened
- 1 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup peanut butter (+ 1/4 cup for center)
- 8 oz chocolate, melted and cooled
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans, line with parchment paper, grease parchment, and flour pans.
- In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt on low speed until combined. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, and mix until only pea-size pieces remain, about 1 minute.
- Add half of egg mixture to the flour mixture, increase speed to medium-high, and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to medium-low, add remaining egg mixture, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds (batter may look slightly curdled - this is ok). Give the batter a final stir by hand to make sure everything is evenly distributed.
- Spread batter evenly in the two prepared pans and smooth tops with rubber spatula. Bake until tops are light golden and toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs, 20 to 23 minutes. Let cakes cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove cakes from pans, discard parchment, and let cool completely on a wire rack, about 2 hours. Make sure cake has cooled completely before icing.
- Beat the butter and peanut butter together until smooth. Add the chocolate and mix until well combined. Add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt and beat on high speed until icing is light and fluffy.
- Place one of the cake layers on a cake plate. Add some frosting on top and spread evenly. Heat the 1/4 cup peanut butter in the microwave for about 20 seconds, until slightly soft but not hot. Spread the peanut butter evenly over the frosting. Add the second cake layer on top of the filling. Frost the rest of the cake. Decorate with sprinkles as desired.
Notes
Yellow cake recipe from America's Test Kitchen
And now for the party favor…a GIVEAWAY of $50 to Amazon.com! Happy Birthday CCL! Good luck and thanks for reading and entering!
This is how we celebrate birthdays around here!
Birthday Brownie Pudding (Cate’s 29th)
Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting (Chez CateyLou’s 1st)
HAPPY BLOGAVERSARY!!!!
This cake is the perfect way to celebrate the occasion-that pb chocolate frosting is TO DIE FOR!
Thank you so much, Kayle!! I couldn’t agree more about the frosting…I couldn’t stop licking the bowl…
Happy happy happy birthday CCL! You guys really know how to do it up right. This cake sounds amazing and the sprinkle-cookie cutter method is such a great idea!
Thank you so much, Nora!! We certainly like to celebrate!!
What a delicious cake! Perfect for a Birthday! Great giveaway
Thank you so much, Ilona! I hope you win 🙂
Happy second year blogiversary, Cate! Your space is one of my favourites on the internet – everything you make is beautiful, delicious, and your writing always brings me back for more. This cake looks too legit – I LOVE a classic yellow cake and that peanut butter spread in the middle is brilliant. I love eating cake and while I make a lot of them, I never feel like my decorating is up to par so I can totally commiserate with how you feel. Never fear – this one is beautiful. I’m impressed with the stencil you made – that’s totally beyond my skill set! Here’s to many many more years of Chez CateyLou!
Thank you so much for your sweet comment, Nancy! You made my day! One of the best things about blogging is all of the amazing people I have (virtually) met, like you! I hope that we get to meet in person before CCL’s third birthday! xoxo
Yea! What a great 2 years it’s been and what a terrific cake! I take yellow cake any day!
What a great way to celebrate with this delightful cake! Love the extra bit of PB in the middle! Happy 2 years – congrats!
Layer cakes have been on my bucket list for a long time! Awesome job friend!
HAPPY HAPPY SECOND BIRTHDAY, CATE! It’s been so fun to reconnect over blogging. I’m a huge fun of your blog and I can’t wait to see all you come up with in the future. xo
I nominate YOU to make MY birthday cake!
Happy 2nd Birthday Chez Catey Lou!! I am so excited to see what your amazing blog has in store for us readers in the years to come! And this cake…OMG yum!!!
This cake looks gorgeously delicious and happy birthday to your amazing blog, girly!
Whoop! Whoop! Happy anniversary! I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than with cake!!
I love this cake and that sprinkles two and the fact that you made a cake for your blog’s birthday. Congratulations on this milestone, Cate. I’m proud of you!
Happy bllogversary!
Woohoo!! Happy 2nd blogiversary!!! So happy to have become blogging buds with you and finally got to actually meet in person this past fall! Wishing you lots of continued success on Chez Catey Lou!!!