Tonight's Game Night! That means there will be a conglomeration of some of my favorite things: good company, superb witty trash-talking, and piles upon piles of delectable comestibles.
A couple of weeks ago, I crafted a yellow cake filled with chocolate mousse, frosted in chocolate buttercream and garnished in chopped milk chocolate for one of our friends who is rather new to the Game Night group. In a previous session, he told a tale of birthday cake woe, where he was robbed of even a single piece of his birthday cake in a tale most sinister and foul. Since I tend to make cakes for peeps in my crew anyway, I whipped up his favorite (the yellow cake) and then laughed as he didn't show up to eat it. We all imbibed in the confection and as friends tend to do, laid all manner of mocking upon him the following week.
However, I still felt a bit of sads about my new pal not getting any cake-joy, so today I crafted a cake that I feel he will at least crack a bit of an anticipatory smile about. I call it The Peanut Butter Gut Buster!
To start with, I baked the sponge last night. It is a triple chocolate cake, and using my fancy cake pans, parchment paper, and cake wraps I crafted the base of my peanut butter cup inspired treat.
Next, I smiled as I grabbed a couple of sticks of butter out of the fridge and plopped them onto the table on my deck. I smiled because it's super warm outside, so even though I forgot to take the butter out to warm up earlier, those sticks of butter got to room temperature in no time!
While the butter was warming up, I whipped up the cake's filling, a chocolate mousse concoction made with instant chocolate pudding, whipping cream, and just a touch of whole milk. That creamy conglomeration has been a taste bud sensation in many of my baked goods over the years. My mom has filled things with variations of that recipe over the course of my entire life, so credit must go to her for creating the mousse amazingness.
After the mousse was whipped up, I got to work on the frosting. I created the recipe for Preposterously Palatable Peanut Butter Frosting years ago. It was even the subject of a blog post on the blockchain that shall be named. That said, I am including it here for ya'll to reference if you need too, as it is a necessity in this cake recipe. Honestly, the peanut butter frosting is probably its own food group, it's that good.
Frosting done, I moved on to the garnish part of the cake, the peanut butter cups! I'll have you know that I didn't eat a single one as I unwrapped the entire bag. Crazy, I know! You see, I limit my sugar consumption to just one or two nights a week, and as we are having a Super Soft Birthday Party for a friend tomorrow (I'm in charge of the cupcake decoration station), I am going to save my sugar indulging day for that event. Here's a little secret though, I am going to cut and save me a slice of the peanut butter cake to eat tomorrow, yay!
After breaking my sugar addiction quite a few years ago, I find that I don't even want to eat sugar laden things all the time, because quite honestly I don't crave sweets too much anymore, nor do I like the way I feel after I eat them, but an occasional treat is enjoyed, for you only get to live once right? And yes, that was a massive run-on sentence, but it's my blog and I can do what I want.
Little diet and life side note aside, I chopped up the pound of peanut butter cups into fourths and set them aside. It was then construction time. My cake stand is at another friend's house (that thing is well traveled), so I placed one chocolate sponge onto a plate, lined the edges with the whipped peanut butter frosting, then spooned in the chocolate mousse. Next, I carefully topped the entire thing with the other sponge round and stood back to smile at the fact that I have improved my cake recipe enough that I don't have to worry about my cakes breaking apart anymore when I place them together (Tip: extra pudding adds structure!).
While singing Heart of Glass by Blondie, I slathered the cake in peanut butter frosting. By the time I moved on to harmonizing with Weezer's In The Garage I had garnished the top of the finished cake with all the peanut butter cup pieces and stood back to admire my insulin-raising handiwork.
Not too shabby...
And now I am taking a nice little break before serving the yumminess to my friends, because to be honest, that is one of my favorite things about being alive, sharing tasty, crafted with love creations with people in an amiable setting. Life is good.
Preposterously Palatable Peanut Butter Frosting
1 cup room temperature butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter See note
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
4 Tablespoons whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
Cream the butter and peanut butter together. Whip it until it's nice and creamy.
Turn your mixer down a notch or two, unless you want to be garnished in powdered sugar, and add in the powdered sugar a bit at a time.
Add in whipping cream and vanilla and turn up your mixer, go hard, you want it to be fluffier than a well-groomed lhasa apso.
Note: Even though I tend to eat natural peanut butter most of the time, this frosting works best with the creamy, processed kind of pb.