Muddy Buddy Cake

That beauty right there is eight layers of chocolate peanut butter goodness! There are two layers each of chocolate peanut butter mousse, chocolate cake, peanut butter cake, muddy buddy crunch and it's iced with the chocolate peanut butter mousse and topped with muddy buddies!

Now THAT is a cake! 

Look at those layers! INTENSE. The only criticism of the cake I have is that I went too thick on the middle muddy buddy crunch layer. Should have gone as thin as the bottom layer.

I'm particularly fond of the elegance of the top of the cake. A quick swirl and a muddy buddy really make for a good border. Just enough of an accent without going overboard. Once you cut into the cake all the focus goes there and that's just the way it should be! 

While you can make this all in one day, it can be done over a few days as well. With so many  moving parts split it up! Bake and make muddy buddies one day, stack and ice the next! You'll be happy you did! 

Muddy Buddy Cake 

1 chocolate cake mix (plus eggs, oil, etc. as the box recommends)

1 butter cake mix (plus eggs, oil, etc. as the box recommends)

1/2 cup peanut butter 

1 cup simple syrup

8 cups Muddy Buddies, plus more for garnish

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/4 cup powdered sugar

6 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled

3/4 cup peanut butter

Bake two 8 inch round chocolate cakes, according to the mix instructions. 

Make two 8 inch butter cakes according to the mix instructions. Add in peanut butter when you add the butter. 

Allow cakes to cool before leveling. 

Line two 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper. Put 8 cups of muddy buddies into a food processor and grind into crumbs. Turn out into bowl and add melted butter. stir until the crumbs are well moistened. Pat the mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom of two 8 inch cake pans.  Put in freezer for one hour.

Cream butter in a mixing bowl. Gradually beat in the sugar with an electric mixer until light colored and well blended. Beat in the thoroughly cooled chocolate, and peanut butter, until you reach a uniform consistency. Be sure to scrape down the sides.

To assemble the cake, place on layer of the muddy buddy crunch down first. 

Place a leveled layer of peanut butter cake down next. Brush the top of the cake with simple syrup.

Pipe of layer of the chocolate peanut butter mousse on top, then gently place a layer of the chocolate cake on top. Brush the top of the cake with simple syrup. 

Repeat with the remaining layers. 

Ice cake with the mousse. To get very smooth frosting, dip your knife in hot water occasionally. The heat will help the icing smooth. 

Pipe swirls on cake, placing a muddy buddy in between each swirl. 

Pipe a border along the bottom of the cake. 

Store in the fridge. Take the cake out of the fridge 15 minutes before serving. 

Et voila! You have a lovely cake full of deliciousness!

Muddy Buddies

Muddy buddies, eh? I know, I know. It's not something you haven't heard of a million times before. So what makes my recipe any different from the hundreds of others?

Firstly, my recipe is scaled to the use the ENTIRE box. I personally hate the fact that the regular recipe uses all but two cups. I want to use it all up! Who wouldn't be happier with two more cups of muddy buddies?! 

Secondly, my method skips the two gallon bag. I sift the sugar into the bowl and continue to toss to coat. Less waste and more control of the sugar distribution, and the mix cools faster this way. The bag method has never been my favorite. While it can be fun, I get annoyed at the large clusters created and the unevenness of the sugar coating. 

The result, in my opinion, is far superior. It's faster, less measuring, and more muddy buddies!!!

What's not to love?!

Muddy Buddies 
adapted from Chex Muddy Buddies

1 whole box Corn Chex cereal (11 cups)
1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup butter
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 cups powdered sugar, per your preference

Into large bowl, measure cereal and set aside.

In large microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated.

Sift half a cup of powdered sugar over the cereal. Stir. Repeat until the cereal is evenly coated in sugar. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Years ago, a bright eyed girl went off to college, had a roommate, lived away from home, and was truly in control of what was stocked in her fridge for the first time. At 18 I received a bit of a wake up call. Firstly, I had not considered that I would have to share the fridge with my roommate, and secondly, it had never occurred to me that there would be yogurt in it, many types of yogurt, and that she would eat yogurt daily. Yogurt had never taken up more than two seconds of my time thus far in my life.

Opening my shared fridge for the first time and finding yogurt was a bit of a wake up call. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but I was an 18 year old who had no living memory of having ever tried yogurt, or seeing a person eat yogurt. That's just.....weird. It gets worse. I also realized I had never tried mustard. HOW does an American girl make it that far in life without eating mustard? On a hot dog? That's just not right. I mean, at least I have had apple pie, but no mustard? Not okay.

Through the years there have been concerted efforts to right these deviances from the normal American life experiences. I  tried yogurt for the first time in my dorm room. My roommate was stunned and gave me a yogurt to try. I was not a fan, but at least I now knew I was not a yogurt person and could move on in my life one step closer to normalcy. Mustard took more effort for me. I mustered (bad pun) up the courage one day in the Student Union building, and bought a ham sandwich with mustard and an old fashioned donut to reward myself for good behavior. I truly enjoy mustard. To be fair to my family, mustard is my own fault. We probably had mustard in a little yellow bottle that I just never thought to try. Most likely it's a holdover from being a stubborn four year old who says "no" about foods they've never tried for no intelligible reason. Yogurt however....well, Mama didn't grow up in a yogurt home either. It's a multi-generational problem I hope to correct for my own children down the road.

With all this thought about childhood foods peanut butter ice cream just had to happen, along with homemade peanut butter cups. *sigh* I also did not enjoy peanut butter until college either. Judge away. 

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

5 egg yolks

1 1/3 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky, but I recommend organic either way) 

Scald milk and cream.

Lightly whisk eggs in a stand mixer along with the sugar, and then add the scalded mixture in a slow stream running down the side of the bowl on a low speed. Pour back into saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon add 1 cup of peanut butter. Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl. If you’re making chunky reserve the peanut pieces to add in later.

Chill custard, stirring occasionally, until cooled. Freeze custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. When nearly finished, add in the last half cup of peanut butter and the peanut pieces.  Allow to integrate and then transfer to a suitable freezing container and put in freezer to firm up. 

Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Smooth, creamy peanut butter buttercream atop moist deep chocolate cupcakes. I recommend adorning them with a few homemade chocolate peanut butter cups! 

This may not be as decadent or as gourmet as some of my more recent posts. But sometimes you just need to get back to basics, and boy do I!!!  Today I held the taste test and administered the surverys for friday's second round of DC Cupcakes: What the locals think. Spoiler Alert: I had to spit out one of the cupcakes. Wretched. Worst. Cupcake. Ever. I'm not exaggerating. One of our tastetesters did the same. I loved his reaction "UGH! If the Donner party would have had these cupcakes, they still would have kept on eating each other!" Spot on. 

After a seriously long day, running around from Penn Quarter, Dupont, and Tenleytown in 90 degree weather and 72% humidity, the cupcakes and myself were certainly the worse for the wear. Normally after an incredibly long and exhausting day I turn to a cupcake. It was a new experience to practically despise cupcakes...which didn't last for long. I picked up a bulgolgi box and was ready to fall right back in love with chocolate cupcakes....just maybe with a better frosting. And you can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter. Simple? Yes, but after today, I'm good with a simple chocolate cupcake. 

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup dutch process cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoon Kosher Salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cups unsalted butter, softened

3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line enough cupcake tins for 28 cupcakes.

In a large bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt. In 2-cup liquid measuring cup, mix buttermilk and vanilla.

In a stand mixer beat sugar and butter until blended on a low speed then increase speed to high for a few minutes until light and creamy. Reduce speed to low; add eggs, 1 at a time while the mixer continues to run.

Add in flour mixture and buttermilk mixture alternately. Beginning and ending with flour mixture.

Pour half the batter into a large pastry bag and pipe into lined cupcake tins. Repeat with the remaining batter.  Bake 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes.

Peanut Butter Buttercream Icing

1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
A pinch of salt
4 cups confectioners sugar

1 cup peanut butter

Whip in a stand mixer using a paddle attachment butter butter, vanilla, salt, and peanut butter till creamy then whip in powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add more sugar to taste.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

It's a slow and lazy rainy day in DC  which makes it always feel good to go back to childhood favorites. Chocolate and peanut butter seem meant for each other. Salty peanuts and sweet chocolate are the perfect combination! The perfect pick me up for this weather! As seen on Photograzing. 

white chocolate peanut butter cups

It's been VERY busy around my house lately. I've taken trips the last few weekends and my mother is coming into town this weekend...which makes me very aware of how much cleaning I need to do. But it also reminded me of chocolate making with my mother. 

My mother, Renee, owns an extensive collection of chocolate molds. I'm. Not. Kidding. Extensive. I'm fairly certain her chocolate molds outnumber all of her dishes, flatware, and stemware combined. Growing up I remember making Turtles, and lollipops that looked like the Care Bears, and of course a peanut butter cup. 

Most people don't own peanut butter cup molds, but they are easy to find online should you decide to invest. You actually don't need them. You can use mini baking cups and they turn out just the same. For this post I even decided to see how a  peanut butter cup would turn out in little brioche pans. They're lovely! And a beautiful switch, with elegantly smooth sides. In all reality you can use just about anything to make a peanut butter cup. Some people even choose to do a bar concept instead.

Personally I like home made peanut butter cups better than a store bought variety. I mix powdered sugar into the peanut butter! I’m a sweet tooth and I am all about the extra sugar! It also makes the peanut butter much easier to work with and closer in consistency to be dough-like, and I like being able to identify all my ingredients instead of eating a barrage of chemicals I can’t pronounce. 

There are so many cute ways to make peanut butter cups also for a little twist. Here I have some with the peanut butter exposed, as well as traditionally with the sides of chocolate. I love the exposed peanut butter. It’s adorable and really stands out compared to the entirely chocolate variety.  

homemade peanut butter cups

Peanut Butter Cups

Candy Melts or Almond Bark Chocolate

Peanut Butter (preferably organic)

Powdered Sugar to taste

All the amounts are up to you! Based on how much you want to make! For a miniature sized peanut butter cup you’ll use about 1 teaspoon of peanut butter.

Line a mini muffin tin with miniature baking liners.

Mix together peanut butter and powdered sugar to taste. I personally prefer a more dough like consistency.

Melt chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals until melted and smooth. Stir in-between each interval.

Dollop about half a teaspoon full of chocolate into the bottom on a baking liner and spread around the bottom (and sides if you want to the more traditional look). Repeat this process for all the baking molds and place the entire pan in the freezer.

While the chocolate is freezing start to pink off teaspoon sized balls of the peanut butter mixture. Set aside until ready to fill.

Take a peanut butter ball and push it into the baking liner. Press down with your thumb to fill and even out the tops of each peanut butter cup. Repeat for all the peanut butter cups.

You’re chocolate will most likely have re-hardened. If you need more melting chocolate add it to the bowl and repeat the 30 second microwave melting process.

When the chocolate is ready dollop another half teaspoon on top and spread the chocolate across the entire surface of the peanut butter. Repeat to the remaining chocolate cups, occasionally tapping to tray on the counter to get the tops of the chocolate to smooth out.

Place in the freezer for a final few minutes to harden up the chocolate. When ready pull the peanut butter cups out of the freezer and serve wrapped or unwrapped. Store any uneaten peanut butter cups in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!