Chocolate Peanut Butter Bliss Cake

At the request of my cousin, probably the blog's biggest fan, I will now bombard you poor souls with holiday recipes, including a boozy cupcake set to start off the new year with a twist of whiskey! Who would dare turn their nose up at that? This cake was really born of last minute delays and pantry staples. My parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this month, and they have yet to kill each other... I'm so proud of their self-control. I wanted to give them a gift that reflected the occasion. I looked into weekend lake rentals, sports tickets, and even spa weekends at hotels out of town. Unfortunately, my budget could not handle my grand plans, so I fell back on my trusted baking talent and made them an extravagant cake. Now, if only my mother had remembered her own anniversary. But the look of surprise and fear on her face was priceless when I told her I made something for her and Dad's anniversary. "What, wait....is that today?!"

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bliss Cake

For the Cake:

• 3/4 cup butter, unsalted
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugar, adding the eggs one at a time until the batter is smooth. Add the vanilla. In a small bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Alternately mix the flour mixture and milk into the wet batter until it is all combined. Grease two cake pans and pour the batter evenly between the two, bake for 16-20 minutes. While the cakes cool you can throw together this amazing peanut butter frosting recipe:

For the Frosting:

• 8 oz. pkg. of cream cheese
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4-6 cups powdered sugar, depends on your desired 'spreadability'
• 1-4 tsp. milk, just as needed

Make sure that your cream cheese has come to room temperature before beginning this process, nothing worse than small pockets of cream cheese in your finished frosting. Mix the cream cheese and peanut butter together in a large mixing bowl. Add the vanilla. Gradually mix in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, adding a teaspoon of milk as needed to prevent it from getting too tough. In the end, this frosting is incredibly thick and rather difficult to spread. Take your time and I promise the reward is worth it. After your cakes have cooled they are ready to be frosted, but for some extra panache I gave mine a rich filling. I had half a jar of crunchy peanut butter and a bag of chocolate chips in my pantry, so into the cake they went. I nuked the peanut butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds to make it more pliable, I then topped it with chocolate chips. After frosting my cake I used some of the chocolate chips to decorate mine, but to each their own. Keep in mind the frosting recipe makes quite a bit, and although unsightly, I highly recommend eating the rest out of the bowl.