oopsy daisy cake.

You may not know (of course you won't, and if you do I'll be worried), but I'm practically doing a little jig here in my chair because oh em gee I'm blogging! It has been at least 120 hours since I've last posted something, which also means that it has been around that much time since I last baked. It may not sound very long to some of you but to me, it's a lifetime. Baking is an addiction not to be belittled. Really.

So, I have a cake to show you all today! (When was the last time I baked a layer cake for the life of me I can't recall... I know, I know- I'll go check the archives.) The oopsy daisy cake is a basically a milk chocolate cake with peanut butter filling and vanilla peanut butter frosting, except that I subbed half the sugar for brown sugar in the frosting so now it's vanilla peanut butter brown sugar frosting. Talk about a mouthful. The cake was born when one day, the dark chocolate to be used in the cake got swapped accidentally for milk chocolate, hence the name.

What you get is the classic combination of peanut butter and milk chocolate and while I feel compelled to like the cake, I have to admit that I don't agree with having milk chocolate in cake. The chocolate flavour was too mild, reminiscent of a brownie with too little chocolate. Not very memorable. But the peanut butter filling was great! I nearly never reject anything that has peanut butter in it. Plus, I added a touch of salt into the filling as well, a la Reese's peanut butter cup. I thought that the frosting was on the sweet side but as I subbed half the sugar with brown sugar as I had mentioned, there was a bit of flavour to the sweetness. The miniscule amount of peanut butter filling added in there was really too little to make a difference, but I guess that's why it's called vanilla peanut butter frosting and not peanut butter vanilla frosting. The upside to this kind of frosting is that it's entirely smooth with zero grittiness from powdered sugar.

I don't usually upload so many pictures but I figured that hey, since I don't get to post so often now, you guys won't mind a bit of picture overload. Right?

Oopsy Daisy Cake
makes an 8 inch cake
adapted from Baked Explorations

For the milk chocolate layers:
2 ounces milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup hot coffee
1/3 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325F. Prepare 2 8-inch round pans.

Place the chocolate and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Pour the hot coffee over and whisk until combined. Whisk in the milk.

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt into another bowl.

Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix again for 30 seconds.

Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the chocolate mixture in two parts, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out mostly clean. Cool cakes in the pan for 20 minutes before unmolding onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the peanut butter filling:
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Beat the butter until smooth. Add the peanut butter and mix until combined. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and salt and beat until smooth.

For the vanilla peanut butter brown sugar frosting:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup unsalted butter, cool but not cold, cubed
1 tbsp + 1 tsp peanut butter filling, recipe above
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk the sugars and flour together in a saucepan. Whisk in the milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil and has thickened.

Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a mixer and beat on high speed until cool, at least 7 minutes. Lower the speed, add the butter and mix until fully incorporated before increasing the speed to medium-high to beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter filling and vanilla and mix to combine. If the frosting is too soft to be used at this point, chill in the fridge for a while.

For assembly:
3/4 cup roasted salted peanuts
dark chocolate shavings (I didn't use)

Place one cake layer on serving platter. Spread the peanut butter filling evenly over, followed by a thin layer of vanilla peanut butter brown sugar frosting. Stack the next cake layer on top. Frost the top and sides with the frosting. Sprinkle peanuts around the perimeter of the cake (although it's up to you, really) and shave chocolate all over the top.

I like to refrigerate my cakes until the frosting is cold and firm before serving but you can serve it once it's assembled.