Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake

Name: Reese's Peanut Butter Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 1 cup creamy peanut butter; 1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened); 1 cup sugar; 4 large eggs; 3 cups self-rising flour; 6 tablespoons King Arthur Flour Cake Enhancer; 1 1/2 cups milk; 1 cup unsalted butter (softened); 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar; 1/2 cup cocoa powder; 2 tablespoons chocolate extract; 4 tablespoons milk

PublishedOctober 15, 2012July 11, 2022 Last UpdatedJuly 11, 2022

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This moist peanut butter cake is a great way to celebrate any birthday or special occasion. Top it with a sweet chocolate frosting.

This.

It’s hard for me to look at this photo and not tear up. As any parent knows, time becomes a whirling vortex. This was so long ago, and also yesterday. But today, for real, he is five.

Five is one of those special numbers. Even though he won’t start kindergarten until next fall thanks to Texas rules, he is in all other ways a kindergartner. He is a Boy, not a baby. Running and shouting and making guns out of anything, but also tending to his stuffed animals and making sure to share anything he thinks I or his father need. Every other day a huge new word pops out and more often than not he is using it correctly. He eats more than I do.

Luckily, thankfully, I can still wrap my arms around him. I still get sneak-attack kisses. I still can teach him all that I can, before he forsakes me and gardening and the kitchen for cafeteria food and whatever teenagers will be doing in 2022.

Right now that means baking.

I began cooking by learning how to bake, so I have been working on getting Reese acquainted with it as well. It seemed only fitting that he should help make his birthday cake.

Now, I am one of those people who must keep everything neat and tidy while cooking. I put things away as I use them, and wipe up spills immediately.

This doesn’t quite work when you invite a kid into the kitchen. Things get spilled. Actually, lots of things get spilled. But eventually you’ll have a great partner and possible sous chef. We just start slow, with mixing and measuring. For us what works best is using a kitchen scale for the measuring – kids don’t exactly have the hang of “proper” cup measure. We have done a few batches of cookies and muffins together before, so our next step was egg cracking. I guided his hands on the first egg, but he was doing it by himself completely by the third egg.

I think he’s already better at it than I am. Not even one tiny bit of shell in the whole batch!

(You might be wondering where the stand mixer is, and to that I say, feh! I mean, I do love my stand mixer, but I also enjoy mixing a cake by hand. When it comes to teaching, you can’t quite replicate the same experience with “dump ingredient in and turn on”.)

Cupcakes are great for kids’ parties of course, so we made both a small layer cake and cupcakes. Scooping out the batter is a good job for kids, although if you are using the spring-loaded cookie scoops, you might need to help. We watched the cakes rise while we ate lunch, and it’s hard to beat the pride that came every time he excitedly exclaimed that we needed to look again because now they were taller.

Of course, being a kid with lots of things on his mind, he lost interest when it came time to decorate. Which made for the perfect opportunity to carry out the plan.

peanut butter cake decorated with lego fondant

Did you know perfection is one of those words that works in different ways? I’m hardly a cake-decorating expert, but when I see this picture, all I think about is the love that went into it. Not how long it took to cut out the fondant circles for the bricks, but how my son’s eyes lit up when he saw the finished cake. Can we bottle that emotion? Because that is perfection.

I have become obsessed with self-rising flour lately, so I’m really happy to be able to spread the love to you. I’ve used it for everything, from biscuits to pancakes to quick bread to cake. Anything that requires less work on my part is great!

If you’ve never used cake enhancer, it makes cakes extra soft and moist, and the chocolate extract adds another kick of chocolate to cake and frosting without adding more cocoa powder or melted chocolate. Just use it in place of vanilla!