a triple threat: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake from Zoe Bakes Cakes

M

marilynfl

Moderator
So far I am loving this cookbook. She is fun to read while being supportive of learning curves. The book provides basic recipes and then she fancies them up a bit. This one is a basic devil's food cake that gets a layer of peanut butter whipped cream and a crown of dark chocolate ganache. Toss some whole peanuts on top for the win.

I'm going to link her recipe for the devil's food portion:

https://zoebakes.com/2016/03/18/devils-food-cupcakes-cream-cheese-icing/

For this version, it's baked in a buttered/floured 9" pullman at 350 F degrees for 70 minutes.

The peanut butter layer is

1/2 C peanut butter blended with

1/2 C hot heavy cream

Add an additional 1.5 C of heavy cream (I only added one cup). Chill

For the ganache layer, I used

1 C hot heavy cream

5.25 oz bar of dark chocolate

Stir until melted and set aside.

I torted the cake to have a level top, spread the butter cream, topped with ganache and pressed in honey roasted peanuts on top.

Uber riche.

 
Sign me up for a slice! How would you rate the chocolate cake vs. other chocolate cake recipes? I know there was a choco-cake off not long ago here.

Question on "torted the cake." What is that method? #notabaker LOL.

Thanks for sharing!

M

 
hi monj,

“Torting” = leveling the cake top. Most round cakes create a small dome and for a solid connection between iced layers, you cut off the dome or “torte” it. In this case, she doesn’t mention that step and her photo looks perfectly square, but mine domed almost an inch. So I leveled it, then ate the scraps.

I did go to the bother of finding Dutch process cocoa—even though the linked recipe (but not the book recipe) says it’s not critical. I looked at Whole Foods; I looked at Giant Eagle; I looked at upscale Market Place…nada. Then I found Ghirardelli Dutch Process at…Walmarts. Go figure.

Zoe went to CIA and says she used this cake recipe for weddings, Bar Mitzvah’s, etc while working at a large catering company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I felt that provided solid proof of worthiness. You can’t get away with serving lousy wedding cake…or, at least, not more than once.

To your last question, I haven’t made the other chocolate cake recipes to compare. In fact, I had to give away most of this and then ditch the rest because neither Mom nor I should be eating anything this rich. But I wanted to test it out….and I love the squareness of the Pullman pan. As it turns out, USA PAN company is about 10 miles from where I’m sitting right now.

I DO think this recipe may be close to those Triple Chocolate Muffins from Dunkin’ Donuts that I’ve been trying to reproduce for years (decades actually, but who wants to admit that). And I’ve probably tried 10 different recipes for that. Those muffins were only available around Valentines Day and DD not longer offers them even as a speciality because a manager told me they were too expensive to produce.

The cake is moist and porous and the buttermilk provides a bit of tang. The texture reminds me of those WWII chocolate butterless cakes made with oil.

I probably won’t try another recipe until I get back to NC in October.

 
Marilyn, you must be my twin sister from another mother! (btw - please give her a hug from me:)

I picked up Zoe's book at our library and two days later I bought my own copy and one of the reasons for this is for the peanut butter whipped cream (cake). And....yours look fabulous! Also because her white and yellow cakes look like they have great potential.

I may not get to try recipes for another two weeks; lots of things I need to make before then and a quick little trip to KY to visit hubby's uncle.

 
Both the cake and rolls sound yummy. I can’t try them yet because neighbors are dieting and I dare not have it all to myself!

FYI, on the cake doming…I learned a trick from pastries like a pro blog, don’t grease the sides of your cake pans. It seems so obvious after the fact, but if you grease the sides of your cake pan when your cake rises, it won’t keep the rise on the edges because of the grease, so it slips down in the pan creating the dome. If you don’t grease the sides, It will stick just enough to hold the rise to the edge of the pan and you will end up with a flatter cake on top. Ta-da!

Lightbulb moment! 💡

 
Wow, interesting I follow Helen at Pastries and was just now going to mention this thing about domeing. Interesting to hear from others about their experience with domeing.

 
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