Double Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Chocolate Frosting
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This cake, y'all. This cake. My husband Jordan and I are celebrating 3 years of marriage today and our usual tradition has been to order a mini version of his groom's cake to enjoy on our anniversary. You can see a snapshot of this gorgeous cake below!
Trust me, it tasted just as divine as it looks. Here we are cutting the cake and feeding it to each other - this picture perfectly sums up our relationship (all the silly faces):
When I tell you that this cake is heaven in your mouth, I am not exaggerating in the least. If you were at our wedding and had a slice of it, you know what I'm talking about! And I feel like I can say that since I totally didn't make it! I thought it would be so fun to try my hand at making it myself this year as a special surprise for Jordan.
Dessert is definitely my husbands love language, so he loved coming home to find my own version of his groom's cake waiting for him :) We hadn't talked about ordering a cake at all, so I knew it would be a complete surprise. Jordan won a dinner at Texas de Brazil and 2 tickets to a sculpture museum at work a while back, and we had been holding onto them for this occasion. I brought our cake along with us to our weekend anniversary date in Dallas. :)
It was fun to stay in a hotel for a night, have a fancy dinner + this incredible cake! On Saturday we browsed around Dallas, saw the new Steve Job's movie, and hid from all the rain. It was definitely relaxing and so nice to have a day without our toddler and no schedule to just allow us to linger.
I recently discovered Pillsbury's Purely Simple products at Kroger and used them to make cupcakes for our gender reveal party last month. We used the white cake mix and mixed in bananas for a fun twist, and got so many compliments! I was so excited when I saw it in the grocery store because it meant less work for me (no need for homemade cake or cupcakes) but I could still count on the mix containing no colors, preservatives, or artificial flavors. So of course, I decided to go with Purely Simple again for our anniversary.
Ingredients
Cake
- Pillsbury Purely Simple Chocolate Cake Mix
- 1 stick of butter, softened
- 1 cup milk
- 3 eggs
- 10 ounce bag of mini chocolate chips, divided in half
Filling
- Remaining chocolate chips (about 3/4 cup)
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Frosting
- Pillsbury Purely Simple Chocolate Buttercream Mix
- 1 stick of butter, softened
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F
Make cake mix according to the instructions on the package. Once the batter is completely blended, fold in half the bag of chocolate chips (about 3/4-1 cup).
Spray two 9-inch round baking pans with non-stick cooking spray and divide the batter between the two. I used this size because it's what I had on hand, and it created a large cake with thinner layers. You could definitely use smaller baking pans for thicker layers and a smaller cake or even try more than two layers, of course adjusting the bake times if you do. Play around with it and see what works for you!
For 9-inch rounds, bake for 29 minutes.
While the cake is baking, combine the remaining chocolate chips, peanut butter, coconut oil and vanilla in a small sauce pan over medium low heat. Stir until all the ingredients are completely melted.
Once the cake is done, carefully transfer them to a cooling rack. Take the chocolate peanut butter filling off the heat and allow to cool right alongside the cake.
Once completely cooled, use a serrated knife to cut off a small piece of the top so that the cake layers lay perfectly flat on top of each other. Place one round on a cake stand or serving plate and pour filling on top. It's okay if it drizzles down the side some! Place the second layer on top.
In a separate mixing bowl, make your chocolate buttercream according to the package instructions. Once the frosting is fully blended, add in peanut butter and mix on high speed until blended thoroughly. You may need to add a small amount of additional water to the frosting to thin it out just a bit and make it spreadable, since the peanut butter will thicken it up some.
Using an icing spatula, scoop about 1 cup of frosting onto the middle of the cake. Use your spatula to move the icing out into a thin layer, spreading it down to coat the outside edges as well, creating a crumb coat. Place cake in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set the crumb coat.
Fill a piping bag with the remaining frosting and decorate anyway you like! I think frosting a cake or cupcakes is one of the most fun parts of the process!
You can save $0.50 on one package of Purely Simple Cake Mix at Kroger with this coupon. Available: 10/19-11/15 Exp. 11/30
