Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake

 

Chocolate and peanut butter and are two of my favorite combinations, and Mr. Apron loves peanut butter cups so when I saw this cake on Annie's Eats a few months ago, I knew I had to make it.   I originally made this cake in the fall for a family member's birthday and I made it again for a co-worker's birthday in March.   (You wouldn't believe how much peanut butter we keep in the office.)

I made a few changes to the cake.  Instead of filling it with peanut butter frosting, I filled it with chocolate buttercream mixed with broken up peanut butter cups.   And I used the left over chocolate buttercream to top the cake with the peanut butter cups.   

 

You can use any chocolate cake recipe for the cake.  I used the Magnolia Chocolate Buttermilk Cake recipe.

Magnolia Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted (either in microwave or over double boiler)
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and lightly flour two 9 x 2-inch round cake pans, then line the bottoms with wax paper (I actually found that all of my cake pans are 1 1/2-inches deep...).

In a medium-size bowl, sift together the flour and the baking soda. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugars until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add the chocolate, mixing until well-incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the buttermilk and the vanilla extract, beating after each addition until smooth. Divide the cake batter between the prepared pans and bake for 25-35 minutes or until a cake tester (or fork, or toothpick) comes out clean.

To Assemble Cake:

Make two batches of peanut butter frosting, and one batch of chocolate buttercream. 

Hershey's Chocolate Buttercream

6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened

2-2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chop in half one and half bags of mini peanut buttercups.  Mix about 1/3 of the peanut buttercups in the chocolate buttercream.  Spread 3/4 of the chocolate butter cream on top of one of the cake layers.

Place the unused cake layer on top of the layer with the butter cream.  Frost the top and sides with the peanut butter frosting.   Use the remaining chocolate frosting and peanut buttercups to garnish.