chocolate chiffon cake with peanut butter frosting.

So this is the chocolate cake idea I was talking about the other day! To cut straight to the chase, I was banking on the decoration to be the most outstanding component of the cake but the chiffon cake itself was pretty darn good too! Best chocolate chiffon I've ever eaten, I swear.

Decorating the cake was unexpectedly challenging. Not all the balls of cereal are of the same size so after you've done a few rows you might notice that the diagonal lines are becoming crooked. Packing the studded cereal even closer together would be a futile effort, not to mention the possibility of them dropping off, so I decided to repeat the same color twice in a row to get the remaining rows to align again. Studding the reese's cereal one by one by hand was also extremely boring and repetitive (peanut butter, chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate, mutated cereal - eat, peanut butter, chocolate) ; I found myself wishing that I had made a shorter cake! But then it wouldn't have as much of a visual impact, of course. Oh, I highly recommend that you set the cake on a turntable when decorating the cake because it's less tiring that way and you'll risk accidentally jabbing the cake with your finger not so often.

This is one of those "I can't bear to eat it!" and "How in the world do I cut this??" kind of cakes. Slicing into it was a nasty job but hey, someone's gotta do it.

Chocolate Chiffon Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting
makes a 6 inch tube cake
cake recipe adapted from here

For the cake:
(A)
15g cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp espresso powder
1/4 cup boiling water

(B)
50g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder

(C)
2 egg yolks
30g sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
42g oil

(D)
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp salt
60g sugar

For the frosting:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tbsp milk, as needed
pinch of salt

For the decoration:
Reese's cereal

Bake the cake: Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 6 inch tube pan.

Mix all the ingredients in (A) together and set aside.

Sift the cake flour and baking powder together.

Except the oil, whisk all the ingredients in (C) together until pale and creamy. While whisking, slowly stream in the oil until incorporated. Stir in (A) until combined. Sift in (B) and stir until no traces of flour remain.

Whisk the egg whites and salt together until foamy. Add in the sugar gradually and continue whisking until the egg whites reach stiff peaks.

Take 1/3 of the egg white mixture and whisk gently into the chocolate mixture until homogenous. Pour the chocolate mixture into the bowl with the remaining egg whites and fold until homogenous.

Pour batter into pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool upside down on a cooling rack.

Make the frosting: Beat butter and peanut butter until smooth. Gradually beat in the icing sugar and when the mixture starts to get thicker, add in the milk a teaspoon at a time until all the sugar has been incorporated and frosting is thick and spreadable. Continue beating for at least 1 minute to get the frosting light and fluffy.

Frost and decorate the cake: When the cake has cooled completely, remove it from the pan. Frost the outsides of the cake evenly with the peanut butter frosting. Stud the frosting with the Reese's cereal, alternating between the two colours.