Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Two of my sisters celebrate their Birthdays today! Hooray! So Happy Birthday to big sister Ettie and small sister Raedi! I made one of my favourite cakes from my book MakeBakeLove which will be out next week, it's so exciting to see it all printed and bound. Being able to flick through it and look at all the photos is great. It's like having the blog come to life!
This cake is the ultimate celebration. Peanut butter and chocolate is a winning combination. Covering the inside of the tins with chopped nuts adds a lovely texture and flavour, but you can just use flour if you like. To go totally overboard, you could pile some mini chocolate peanut butter drops or chocolate-covered nuts on top. A salty-sweet dream cake!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Serves 8–10

For the cake:
60g dry roasted peanuts, chopped, plus extra to decorate
225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
100ml milk
225g self-raising flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder

For the peanut butter cream:
250g icing sugar, divided
125g smooth peanut butter
30g butter, softened
50ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter 2 x 20cm sandwich tins and cover with the chopped nuts.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the milk.
3. Sieve the flour, cocoa and baking powder into the egg mixture. Mix until just combined, taking care not to overmix.
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared sandwich tins, taking care not to disturb the nuts. Bake for 30 minutes, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool fully on a rack.
5. To make the icing, cream together half the icing sugar, the butter, peanut butter, milk and vanilla in a bowl until well combined. Add the rest of the icing sugar and mix well, until fluffy.
6. Sandwich the cake together with the icing. Top with more icing and roasted peanuts.

Lilly x