Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Birthday Cake

I just had to share this with you even though it's not my own recipe. It's not only the best vegan cake I've ever made, but it's up there with the best cakes I've made, full stop.

Unlike other vegan cakes it doesn't contain a cupful of oil (I read the number of calories recently in a bottle of vegetable oil, and am still reeling). But it's still incredibly moist, so much so that you need to eat it with a fork rather than fingers, and really chocolatey. The peanut butter filling and topping are delish - even my husband loved this and he doesn't really like peanut butter. All together, it's a gooey cake that feels very indulgent - a real treat both for vegans and non-vegans alike.

I made this the day after my birthday as I had a couple of friends coming over to do a room escape game (which was brilliant by the way, I can't recommend them enough). One friend is vegan and I wanted to make a cake she could eat, so had a look online and found this recipe on Dora's Daily Dish - pop over and have a look.
The recipe was quite interesting - as I said a lot of the vegan cakes I've made use oil. This one uses melted vegan margarine, flax seed, almond milk and coffee.

It's really easy to make, you just mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

 

Here the cakes have just come out of the oven

The frosting unusually doesn't use icing sugar and is just peanut butter, vegan margarine and agave nectar. I spread half in the middle of the cake and the other half on the top.

A fairly simple, classic cake - the two layers were pretty deep, this is a good recipe in that sense - and in fact in every sense!

 

I'm sharing this bake with We Should Cocoa at Tin and Thyme.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Goo Goo Cake

 

When I was on holiday in Nashville in September – which is a brilliant place to visit, especially if you’re a fan of the Nashville TV series like I am – I came across something called a Goo Goo Cluster. These are candy bars – though they are actually round – made of chocolate, caramel, peanuts and marshmallow nougat. But what’s more, they are of great historical significance – the Goo Goo was invented in 1912 and was the first time more than one element had been combined in a candy bar.

 

They were created in Nashville and the city is proud of the association – there’s a dedicated Goo Goo shop in the town centre, and when I bought the celebration package at the Grand Ole Opry for my future mother-in-law, the bag contained a Goo Goo Cluster.

 

So when I saw the letter this month for Alphabakes (the blog challenge I co-host with Ros) was G, I thought Goo Goo Clusters would be fun to make. And then I saw a recipe for a Goo Goo Cluster Cake…

 

No comments please about January health kicks or pre-wedding diets as this is a very indulgent cake! So that’s why I made it for someone else…. I’ve mentioned before that I spend one day a month working on a project at an agency of very cool people. I spend the day in their offices and it almost always turns into a late night, so I feel the least I can do is take them some cake (and it seems to be greatly appreciated!).

 

I found a recipe for Goo Goo Clusters – or something resembling them, as it doesn’t really have nougat – here.

 

They were really easy to make – melt the chocolate with the condensed milk (I used Carnation), mix in the peanuts and marshmallows and pour into a pan (I lined a pan with greaseproof paper rather than buttering it) and set in the fridge.
 

 

I tried a little bit straight from the fridge and I have to say these are delicious!

 

Then I went to the Goo Goo website for this recipe for a Peanut Butter Goo Goo Chocolate PB Cake – though that name is a bit of a mouthful and I didn’t realise I actually needed to have made peanut butter Goo Goo Clusters, rather than chocolate – so instead I’m calling this a Chocolate and Peanut Butter Goo Goo Cake.

 

You can follow the recipe directly from the website; apparently this cake is available in the Nashville shop’s dessert bar. I want to go back there now!

 

I converted the measurements to grams but otherwise followed the recipe:

 

I melted the chocolate and butter, added the sugar and salt and heated until the sugar had dissolved.

 

Whisked in the eggs and then the cocoa powder.

 

 

Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes then cool. The cake did sink slightly but I wasn’t surprised as you may have noticed this is actually a flourless cake.

 

Meanwhile I made the peanut butter layer by beating together the peanut butter, sugar, milk, oil, egg yolks, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
 

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl and then fold in.

 

Bake for 25 minutes.

 

For the chocolate filling and glaze, melt the chocolate and butter, then remove from the heat and add milk, honey and vanilla.

I decided this was a bit thin and added some icing sugar to it as well.

 

Pour about a third of the mixture onto the chocolate cake, and gently top with the peanut butter cake. Pour the rest of the glaze on the top and allow to run down the sides. Sprinkle with chopped Goo Goo Clusters.

 

This cake was delicious, really decadent, and very popular in the office!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is G.

 

Reese's Pieces Chocolate Peanut Butter Bundt Cake

I never particularly liked peanut butter until I discovered Reese’s Pieces. The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is amazing and every time I go to the US I bring back a big bag of the peanut butter cups. This time I found a bag of mini cups, which I thought would be perfect to sprinkle over the top of a cake or dessert (or eat by the handful, of course).

 

 I also bought a plastic tub of Reese’s Pieces peanut butter chocolate spread – which is like Nutella but with peanut butter flavour – which is so yummy! You can get it in the UK as well- I found it in Tesco.

 

I decided to make a cake with the chocolate and peanut butter flavours and as a filling might make the cake too rich, there was only one thing for it – a bundt.

 

Here’s the recipe I created

Reese’s Pieces chocolate peanut butter bundt – an original recipe by Caroline Makes

 

200g butter

400g caster sugar

4 eggs

3 tbsp peanut butter

250g self-raising flour

100g cocoa powder

Splash of milk (optional)

To decorate

½ tub of Reese’s Pieces peanut butter chocolate spread (if you can’t get this, you could use regular chocolate spread with peanut butter mixed in)

To decorate: mini Reese’s Pieces (if you can’t get these, you can decorate with chocolate chips)

 

Preheat oven to 180C.

 

Cream the butter and the sugar then add the eggs, mixing well. Stir in the peanut butter until combined.

 

 

Fold in the flour and the cocoa powder. If the mixture looks too thick, add a splash of milk.

 

Grease your bundt tin and spoon in the mixture and level off. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, checking with a metal skewer when the cake is done.

 

When baked, allow to cool in the tin then turn out of the tin onto a wire cooling rack. Put kitchen towel or newspaper under the rack to help keep your worktop clean if you like, as the next stage is a bit messy!

 

Spoon half a tub of the Reese's Pieces peanut butter chocolate spread (or nutella etc) to a microwave-proof bowl and heat in the microwave until it is a thick pouring consistency. Pour over the bundt and spread with a knife if needed so the glaze comes down the sides.

 

 

Decorate with mini Reese's Pieces or chocolate chips.

 

I made this for a bake sale at work and it went down very well - I only just managed to get a small slice to try it myself! It was a really good cake but you probably knew that from reading the name alone - if you like peanut butter anyway!

 

I'm sharing this with We Should Cocoa, the blog challenge started by Choclette of Tin & Thyme and run this month by It's Not Easy Being Greedy. The theme is USA and I bought the main ingredients for this cake in America!

I'm also sending this to Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host based on the location of each F1 Grand Prix as this weekend it's in America.

 

Jus-Rol Pastry: Chicken, Squash and Sage Pithivier

Jus-Rol have been making pastry in Berwick-upon-Tweed for over 60 years and they have just launched a new campaign, Jus Create, to showcase what you can do with pastry.

I would think most people have used Jus-Rol at some point to at least make an apple tart, a chicken pie or puff pastry straws. But there are so many more things you can make, some of which I learnt recently at a demonstration evening.

I was invited by Jus-Rol, who have teamed up with Great British Chefs, to an evening at the Atelier des Chefs cookery school in London. Professional chefs Mark Dodson and Sally Abe, who have both got impressive credentials and many years of experience, had devised four recipes, including the chicken, squash and sage pithivier.

 

We watched a demonstration of the pithivier and of a chocolate and peanut butter ganache tart; you can see the recipe for the tart here. We were divided into two groups and made one recipe each; I made the pithivier but I did get to taste the chocolate tart as well and it was amazing! Really easy to make and a great recipe to end a dinner party with.

I'd never heard of a pithivier before; it's a French pie made with flaky puff pastry, but instead of having a deep dish base and a flat top as many pies have, this one has a flat base and a domed top. Did you know puff pastry was invented in the 17th century?

You can see the recipe for the one we made here.

It's a real crowdpleaser, and you can make them small or large - we watched Sally make a large one then made small ones ourselves. Most of the prep can be done before your guests arrive so you just pop it in the oven while you are chatting and mingling. That's my kind of dinner party!

 

I also picked up lots of useful tips, such as: take pastry out of the fridge 20-30 minutes before using. You want it to be chilled, but not too cold.

When lining a tin with pastry, let the pastry overhang the sides and bake it like that as pastry will often sink. Then trim off the excess afterwards, with a serrated knife.

This is where we came to make our own...

They were quite small so it was hard to get much filling on the base. It helped that I don't like mushrooms so picked them all out!

I also learnt - afterwards - that when scoring pastry you should hold the knife at an angle. If you hold it vertically like I did here, the cuts won't really show up after baking.

Egg wash is always important for a golden shell.

Here's one of the large pithiviers cut in half. It was lovely!

 

 

Thanks to Jus-Rol for inviting me to the event.

Reese's Pieces Chocolate Brownies

Once a month I spend the best part of a day (and evening) at a design agency we use to produce a particular project. We sit with the designers while they make our final changes, tweak the layout and so on – the last time I was there, we didn’t finish until late in the evening so a colleague and I went to grab a burger at Five Guys. This time around I was going prepared- with snacks! It’s always nice to find other people to bake for, as it can get a bit much taking cakes into work too often. But I was out until 10pm the night before on my cake decorating class, and wondered what I could possibly throw together in less than an hour, that would also be easy to pack into Tupperware and take with me the next day. The answer of course is chocolate brownies!

I’ve made enough brownies before that I wanted to do something a bit different this time. I had the idea of Mini Egg Brownies as we are coming up to Easter, but while the supermarket was full of Easter eggs, I couldn’t find a single packet of Mini Eggs. Perhaps I will make those a bit nearer to Easter! So I got home with the main ingredients for the brownies but nothing extra to add in, and cast my eye around the house – it fell upon a jar of Reece’s Pieces mini  peanut butter cups, nestling behind the Kitchenaid (out of sight otherwise I’m sure I would have eaten them by now!). I knew that would work and debated just throwing them into a basic brownie recipe but then decided to see if Hershey’s – the maker of Reese’s – had a recipe on their website. And they had plenty, some of which I have bookmarked to come back to!

I used this recipe but changed it a bit – I didn’t add the extra layer of peanut butter on top, as I thought it might be a bit much (I didn’t know if many people at the design agency were peanut butter fans – my boyfriend for instance doesn’t really like it) and rather than using the miniature peanut butter cups and sprinkling them throughout the mixture, I used whole ones pressed down in the tin in rows. I think with all those changes I can call this

Reese's Pieces Chocolate Brownies - an original recipe by Caroline Makes...

You need:

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2 cups caster sugar

2/3 cup cocoa powder

4 eggs

3/4 cup self-raising flour

approx. 16-20 Reese's Pieces peanut butter cups

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a square brownie tin.

Melt the butter in a small pan over the low heat; add the sugar and cocoa powder and stir gently until the sugar has dissolved and you have a thick chocolate mixture. Remove from the heat.

Transfer to a bowl and beat in the eggs then fold in the flour.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Unwrap the Reese's Pieces peanut butter cups and gently press down into the mixture in rows.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes then allow to cool.

Use the position of the Reese's Pieces to show where to cut into squares. You can see they have roughly held their shape and you can definitely spot them inside the brownies.

These tasted very good - the peanut butter gave a salty yet sweet contrast to the rest of the brownie. These went down very well with the agency!

I'm sharing these with We Should Cocoa, as the theme this month is chocolate brownies. The challenge is hosted this month by Katie at Recipe for Perfection on behalf of Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog.