- Hey, I'm John Kanell,
and today on "Preppy Kitchen,"
we're making an amazing peanut butter cake,
so let's get started.
First off, grab a small sauce pan,
and we're gonna add some ingredients in there
and get them nice and smooth.
Starting off with 1/2 a cup or 113 grams of unsalted butter.
I also want 3/4 of a cup of creamy peanut butter.
That's 198 grams.
I think it's way easier to weigh it, by the way.
Perfect.
I also want one cup of water.
That's 240 mils.
This is an odd combination of ingredients
to be putting into a pan.
We're gonna bring this over like medium-low heat,
stirring constantly until it is smooth and amazing.
I also preheated my oven to 350, so it's nice and toasty,
because this batter comes together super fast.
This cake has an amazing melt-in-your-mouth texture,
and part of that delicacy comes from this combination
of butter, water, and peanut butter.
It's packed with flavor, and it's warmed up,
so that it'll mix in really easily,
and just do some magical things to your cake.
You gotta trust me on this one.
It melts up pretty fast.
We just want this to be nice and smooth.
Be about three minutes of stirring.
My peanut butter's nice and melty.
Two cups or 240 grams of all-purpose flour into a big bowl.
Two cups or 400 grams of sugar.
One teaspoon of baking soda.
This will give you some leavening here.
And 1/2 a teaspoon of salt.
We're gonna give this a whisk.
Ah!
Scale's done.
Oh my gosh, by the by,
the frosting on this cake is going to blow your mind.
And I will give you some tips
for incorporating chocolate into this later.
The last thing for the batter is the butter,
so we're gonna whip that up right now.
Wait, is that right?
(bell chiming)
Bring that bowl back.
I was gonna mix up the butter,
but the butter is in that pan.
It's a little bit different.
Now we're gonna add two room temperature eggs in here.
I get so many questions about egg substitutes.
This recipe uses two eggs,
and I think that one large banana
or two small bananas mashed up
will work really well in there.
If your bananas are not over-ripe, like you use for baking,
just bake them for 10 minutes at 350 until they blacken,
and then scoop them out.
That will be a delicious banana peanut butter cake,
but you'll skip the eggs.
1/2 a cup of milk, 120 mils,
and then I also wanna add in a teaspoon of vanilla.
I'm so excited to be using my homemade vanilla now.
(John sniffs)
Oh my gosh, I wish you could smell this.
It is heavenly.
Okay.
One teaspoon.
And a blessing.
We're gonna mix this up for about a minute
until it's nicely combined.
Maybe a little bit less than a minute.
Okay.
And now we're gonna add our peanut butter mixture in here.
It might look a little bit lumpy.
Don't worry about that.
It tends to wanna separate out because of the water.
Now we're gonna mix this for another minute or so
until it's incorporated and smooth.
And actually, I wanna scrape this bowl down.
In this recipe, I used like a processed peanut butter.
It's like one of those forever smooth ones.
If you wanted to use a natural peanut butter
with no additives, you can totally do that
but just use whatever magic you have
to get it to be completely smooth,
no oil on the top peanut compressed stuff on the bottom.
It needs to be really homogenous and nice.
- [Offscreen] Would crunchy work?
- I think you could use crunchy in this recipe as well.
Although I don't know.
I just worry that the peanuts might get too much water
and soften up a bit.
So they wouldn't be as crunchy as you might like.
Look at that.
I did it all by hand.
(John laughs)
I just so happened to have a 9 by 13 inch pan
all prepped out.
You can use baking spray, you could butter and flour it,
or just butter it.
I love taking these out of the pan for presentation.
So I just cut and fold some parchment paper
and plop that right in.
And they come right out.
And these are practically clean after baking.
So it's super easy to wash.
Now we're gonna pour the batter into our prepped pan.
So it spreads to the corners.
We're gonna pop this into the oven 350
for about 40 minutes or until the center is set
and slightly springy to the touch.
This cake is peanut butter perfection.
But if you wanna add chocolate, I'm not gonna say no.
You can add between 1/2 a cup to 3/4 of a cup
of either chocolate chips or a nice chopped chocolate.
Ah, it's gonna be so good.
And yes, it can go into the frosting as well.
My cake's out of the oven and cooling.
In the meantime,
we're gonna make the most amazing peanut butter frosting
you've ever had in your life.
So we need one cup of creamy peanut butter.
No chunky peanut butter right now.
And that's 264 grams.
It's gonna come out the way it comes out.
It's not gonna be pretty.
(John laughs)
It's just there's no way to get it right.
One cup of room temperature butter.
This is unsalted.
If you want to use salted butter, you totally can.
But like some brands of peanut butter
have a lot of salt in them.
So I would steer clear and add salt to taste.
Okay and now we're gonna mix this up
until it's creamy, homogenous, and consistent
in our stand mixer.
You could also do this with an electric hand mixer
in a big bowl though.
I'm gonna take this to medium high
and mix it for about three minutes
until it is smooth, light, and fluffy.
(mixer grinds)
You're gonna be using this frosting on cupcakes
and just like piping it right into your mouth.
It's that good.
Don't forget to scrape your bowl down.
It's important.
This just needs to mix.
(mixer grinds)
Look at this.
Ah, do you see this whipped perfection?
Come on.
That's amazing.
Look at that and compare it to the original color
of the peanut butter.
That's very nice.
Part of the secret to this frosting's deliciousness
is that it's not overly sweet.
So we're actually
just gonna add in two cups of powdered sugar.
That's not a lot.
I'll do one cup at a time.
So it mixes in nicely.
So start slow, increase speed.
And I also want two teaspoons of vanilla again.
In a pinch you could skip it, but it adds so much.
(mixer grinds)
So happy.
If you wanna make your own homemade vanilla
click the link above and watch away.
Okay.
And now for the second cup, here we go.
This frosting is so soft and luscious.
You're gonna die.
The sugar's all incorporated.
I'm gonna mix on high for one minute
to get this really nice and fluffy.
Ah, okay.
That's ready to spread.
So let's grab our cake.
Once your cake is cooled, get it outta the parchment paper.
So this frosting's been sitting for a minute
and if you look really closely,
the top looks beautiful but when you start pawing into it,
it has a little like a bunch of air bubbles.
That's to be expected.
Just get a spatula and give it a whip.
You could actually whip it up with your mixer again, too,
but this works just as easily.
And you're just breaking up the big bubbles
to restore a beautiful, silky, amazing consistency.
So much amazing peanut butter flavor in here.
If you wanted to you could make some chocolate ganache
by melting chocolate and cream
and swirl that into the buttercream.
That's also very good.
Spread that over the top.
This cake is begging for a swoopy moment.
So get your offset spatula
and just start carving right into it.
It'll create some beautiful organic movement
and just say, "Come eat me, I'm delicious."
Give your cake a cut and it's ready to enjoy.
You can store this for up to three days in the refrigerator.
That melts in your mouth,
is full of creamy peanut butter flavor,
and it like might just be the perfect peanut butter cake.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like my videos, check out my easy cake playlist.