Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Buttercream~with recipe

My friend Sophie's birthday was a few days before I went to visit her so I had to make her a (belated) birthday cake. I knew I wanted to make chocolate cake (because who doesn't love chocolate birthday cake?) but I was torn between coconut buttercream (since it was such a hit with the coconut macaroons) and peanut butter buttercream. I thought the coconut and chocolate would be nice, sort of mounds bar like. But of course chocolate and peanut butter is a classic combination. I was leaning towards coconut, but I figured I'd let the birthday girl decide. I'm glad I did and I'm glad she chose peanut butter. It was delicious! The peanut butter buttercream was perfect. The taste was sweet and rich and perfectly peanutty--it reminded me of the peanut butter nougat I made in class and for my final exam. The texture was surprisingly fluffy for something made primarily of butter and peanut butter.

The buttercream recipe is:

• 12 oz butter (three sticks) at room temperature
• 1 lb confectioners/powdered sugar
• 2 cups unsalted, unsweetened, creamy peanut butter (I used organic)

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth but not fluffy
2. Add the peanut butter and cream until fluffy

Enough for one 2 or 3 layer 9-in cake. (Since I used an 8-in pan, I had quite a bit left over, which I put to good use as I'll tell you about soon!)

I used the same chocolate cake/Brooklyn blackout cake I used for the mocha cupcakes I made last summer. It's a great recipe. The cake is beautifully moist and dense without being heavy. The high cocoa content give it a dark, nearly black crumb and that's too sweet--important for this because the buttercream sure was.

The best candles ever: it's hard to see in the photo,
but the candle flames burned the same color as the wax!

The rich chocolate cake and the sweet peanut butter buttercream were delicious together and quite a hit. Sophie loved it and our friend Chris (who came over for a mini birthday party--complete with Sophie's lemon pasta with caviar) enjoyed it as well (to say the least). He even popped by the next night for a slice of cake on his way home!