57/99: Spice Cake with Peanut Buttercream

Well, guys, it's been awhile. I don't know if you've been hungry for another post but I sure have.  This past week has been absolutely insane. One word: midterm.  But it's OK. They are all done and A or not, I don't have to worry about them again.

So this weekend my plan was to celebrate with a bit of baking and wine. Of course Ole Miss played (some might argue that they didn't actually play) Alabama this weekend and so there was no time for that.


The goal was Chocolate Molten Souffle and Lava Cakes. It sounds divine and if you see Rose's photo of it in the book, it looks just as heavenly as it sounds.  But, if you looked at the title of this post or noticed the picture, what happened was not the chocolate bliss. There's a reason, but I'll save that for another post.  The ganache for it is in the refrigerator right now so that post should be up by tomorrow (because you have to eat them when they're hot!!).

But enough about the chocolate, the cake for today is the spice cake with peanut butter cream.  I went home for my dad's birthday party and made the actual cake at my house  before I left.  I got really nervous at one point because my scale messed up while I was weighing ingredients and I suddenly had double the amount of flour that I was supposed to be putting in the cake. But I thought through what I had done and I was sure that it was the scale and not me.  So I went on with it.

Rose said that once you get it out of the oven, it should then begin to start separating from the sides of the pan. I glanced in the oven 5 minutes before it was supposed to be done and I noticed the perfectly golden brown color.  On second glance, I noticed that the sides had already completely separated from the pan. Uh oh...

I took it out of the oven, let it cool, un-molded it, and then gazed at it proudly.  I've never made such a perfectly symmetrical cake before.  Every corner was crisp. The top was perfectly even. The crumb was beautiful.

I made the butter cream this afternoon which was incredibly easy. All you have to do is toss everything into the food processor and you're done.  Of course I couldn't help but lick the bowl.  I don't know if it's because I'm a huge fan of peanut butter or if it's actually really good but I loved it.

The result was a delicious cake with a surprising flavor. I never would have thought to put peanut butter icing on a spice cake but the flavors complimented each other really well.  It was really easy to eat and got great reviews from my five friends who tried it. I think it's an easy pleaser.