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We celebrated my mother’s birthday along with Memorial Day this year, so Grammy and I headed down home for a picnic. We had ate outside on the deck and had burgers, chips, baked beans, macaroni salad, and corn roasted on the campfire. We ate out on the deck since the weather was finally warm!
As usual, I made my mother’s birthday cake. This year it was a monstrosity of a cake; it took nearly a full jar of peanut butter to complete!
Unfortunately, the project was pretty time consuming, and I was on a deadline so I wasn’t able to do a step-by-step, but I’ll give you a synopsis as best I can.
I only had one cake mix, so I stretched it. I added 3/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup oil, and 1 egg. Since this was going into a chocolate cake, I made the sugar a slightly heaping 1/4 cup and added 2 T cocoa powder.
I always substitute out milk for water when making a box cake, a trick I learned from an amazing woman and talented cook back when she made my 14th birthday cake!
I baked the cake in 3 pans. On one of the layers of cake, I used a bowl to cut out the center leaving a hole.
Then I whipped up some peanut butter icing. I have absolutely no measurements for this. I used nearly a whole jar of peanut butter and a 2 pound bag of powdered sugar and a drizzle of vanilla. Whip on high and add in milk until you reach your desired texture. Good Luck. Godspeed.
Now comes the fun part. I laid my first cake layer down on the plate and drizzled it with Hershey’s syrup. After the syrup, I spread straight-from-the-jar peanut butter. On top of that, I piled on the peanut butter frosting. Next came the cut-out cake layer. I filled the hole with Peanut Butter M&Ms and more Hershey’s syrup, and peanut butter and peanut butter frosting followed. Finally – the last layer of cake. I used almost all of the frosting to over the outside of the cake. This cake probably weighed 10 pounds.
In the remaining frosting, I crumbled some of the cake that had been cut from the center layer. I set the cake/frosting mixture aside while I worked on the next step: chocolate ganache. Now, this was my first attempt at ganache and I followed Martha’s recipe. I bought mini Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I don’t think that the cocoa count was high enough.
Next time I’ll be sure to get a more quality chocolate. I drizzled the ganache over the cake, crumbled the cake/icing mixture around the edges and scattered in some mini and whole-sized Reese’s Cups and finished it off with a sprinkle of peanuts. This cake was layered, drizzled, smothered, scattered, and decadent! You should’ve seen my mother’s face when I pulled off the lid of the cake carrier.
It was such a pretty day that when we rolled up she and Daddy were out on the hammock. We had corn on the cob roasted in the fire ring and ate on the deck. Nothing like country living.
This month has involved so much traveling! I went to Canada, Pittsburgh, up above Harrisburg, down home in WV and the next trip will be to the beach! I hope the warm weather holds out because I need some salt water to soothe my soul.