Happy Birthday Hubby!

Here’s that peanut butter cake I warned you all about… Talking about warnings, this cake comes with a major warning to anyone who has a serious peanut allergy ‘Do NOT try this at home folks!’ I wouldn’t be surprised if someone 2 houses away was affected by it. But for all you peanut lovers, this is a must try!

We had lamb shanks and cous cous with a grilled haloumi salad for lunch. Very Moroccan.

After lunch we tucked into this peanut buttery goodness.

It’s 2 layers of plain cake (top and bottom) and the middle layer is peanut butter brownie. All sandwiched and covered with peanut butter buttercream. For the cake I used this Bakerella recipe, I have to admit, I think the cake may have been lost in translation, it could have been better, I don’t blame the recipe though, it’s a bit hard with measurement conversions and when using different qualities of ingredients (Bakerella is American). The peanut butter brownie recipe is also from Bakerella, slightly adapted though, basically I halved the recipe and omitted the choc chips. And the peanut buttercream is all my own.

Peanut butter brownie

3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 tblsp butter, softened
1/4 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Pre heat oven to 180c and grease a cake/brownie pan. Mix and set aside dry ingredients (the recipe says sift, but who has the time). Cream together the butter and peanut butter till light and fluffy, add in sugars and beat till smooth. Add in the egg and vanilla until combined. Add the dry ingredients and combine on a low speed. Pour into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. You could of course eat this peanut butter brownie all on its own, or you could load it with some butter cream, either way it tastes sooo good!

Peanut butter buttercream

from instgram

185g butter*
2 3/4 cups pure icing sugar1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tblsp boiled water
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter**

*I used 185g because that’s the exact amount I had lying around. Also I normally would use unsalted butter for a buttercream, but since there’s so much salt in the peanut butter it doesn’t really matter what type of butter you use.

**I only had crunchy, so I heated it in the microwave for 10 seconds and sieved out the nuts (used those for the decorations on the top). I also found the warm peanut butter created a smoother butter cream.

In a mixer, beat butter till light and fluffy. Alternate between adding icing sugar and the water, the hot water helps create a softer smoother icing. Add in vanilla essence and peanut butter and mix till combined well.

We finished off the day with “The Avengers” 3D in Gold class. The movie was good, the company was better! Hope you had a great day Abdullah!