Devilishly Good Chocolate Cake with Decadent Peanut Butter Frosting

Welcome back! I am excited to be blogging again so soon. Now that our Internet is smoothly working again, I hope to keep bringing you recipes at least once a week. I'll do my best. ;-)

As you can tell from the title of this post, this recipe involves chocolate and peanut butter...always a winning combo. I really hope you try this recipe the next time you make a cake. It is delicious...or, rather, devilishly good. :)

The recipe is from my Cake Mix Doctor book, so yes, it's not from scratch. But I am okay with that and I hope you are too! The recipe is as follows:

-1 package (18.25 oz.) plain devil's food cake mix

-3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 and 1/3 cups buttermilk (or yogurt!)

-1/2 cup vegetable oil

-3 large eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans OR a bundt pan (which I used). Then dust with flour (or cocoa powder), and set the pan(s) aside.

Place the cake mix, 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder, buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again as needed. The batter should look well blended. Pour the batter into the pan(s), smoothing it out with a rubber spatula. For 9-inch pans, bake 28 to 30 minutes. For a bundt cake, bake for about 45-50 minutes (that's how long mine took to bake; it may take longer). Remove from oven and cool on wire rack for 10-15 minutes. Then gently remove the cake from the pan(s), and cool completely on rack before frosting it.

Now, it's time for the most amazing peanut butter frosting. It's a Barbershop guarantee that you're going to love this frosting! :)

-1 cup creamy peanut butter

-8 Tbsp. (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

-2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

-3 to 4 Tbsp. milk

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

Place the peanut butter and butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, 30 seconds. Add the powdered sugar, 3 Tbsp. milk, and vanilla. Blend again on low speed until the sugar is well combined, 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting lightens and is fluffy, 1 minute more. Blend in up to 1 Tbsp. more milk if the frosting seems too stiff. Use at once to frost the cake! The recipe makes about 3 cups of frosting, enough to frost a 2 or 3-layer 9-inch round cake, a 13 x 9-inch cake, or a 10-inch bundt cake.

I made this cake for a little thank you celebration we had at work for a great volunteer who helped us out  in the lab this summer. It was a hit with my coworkers, I must say! I personally think it was one of the moistest (that's a tough word to say!) chocolate cakes I've ever had. It was pretty dense too! And the frosting really just made it sooo good overall. It was like a giant peanut butter cup! There wasn't a slice of cake left...it went so fast that I completely forgot to take any pictures of a slice of it! All I have is a picture of the final product before I brought it in to work. Oops! Here's the cake in my handy dandy cake carrier before I brought it in and it quickly disappeared...

Hope you all have a lovely, relaxing Labor Day weekend...  I hope to bake something "fall-like" this weekend, so I'll keep you posted if I do! I am so excited that my favorite season is just around the corner!! See you again soon!