Chocoholic: Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

Yes folks, it's another installment of my never-ending cravings for chocolate and peanut butter. I couldn't help myself. It's been too long. In previous posts I've rambled on about my childhood adoration of Drake's Funny Bones. Waxy chocolate coating aside, it's a binge-inducing pop in your mouth of chocolate cake and creamy peanut butter filling. Though I'm really fond of myChocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakesinterpretation, I think I finally nailed it with this layer cake.

Years ago there was a popular chocolate and peanut butter pastry that I used to sell at my shop. I called it a peanut butter mousse bomb: a fist sized ball of creamy peanut butter mousse with a piece of chocolate cake on the bottom and a covering of bittersweet chocolate ganache. From time to time I'd also piece together a layer cake version, using extra chocolate cakes from my rolling racks and the giant bowl of ganache that I always had on hand. It's easy to be spontaneous and creative when you've got lots of excess cake components around all the time, but the stiff price I paid was neverreallyknowing exactly what my food costs were. I'll just assume I made the money back.

To turn that creation into a structured recipe for a single cake, I finally did the math and cut down my big batch chocolate cake recipe to fit a 9-inch pan and also figured out the correct volume of peanut butter filling. What makes this fluffy peanut butter cream so amazing is the cream cheese. Plain sweetened peanut butter often lacks a certain something, and the slight tang of the cheese fills out the flavor perfectly. Combined with the moist chocolate cake and luxurious peanut butter-chocolate ganache, this is an uber rich, super tall cake that will have everyone swooning. Until next time, chocolate-peanut butter fans...

About the Author:伊冯Ruperti美食作家,配方开发人员,former bakery owner, and author ofThe Complete Idiot's Guide To Easy Artisan Bread. You can also watch her culinary stylings on the America's Test Kitchen television show. She presently lives in Singapore working on her new baking cookbook, and as a recipe developer for HungryGoWhere Singapore. Check out her blog:shophousecook.com. Follow Yvonne onTwitter.