Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup/Heath Cake

Ian always requests some combination of peanut butter/chocolate for his birthday cake and this year he added that he wanted some Heath in there too. We settled on a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and I added a layer of Heath bits in between the layers as well on top of the cake then finished the decorations off with some Reese's minis. 

 

It was a huge hit!

 I used my standard/favorite chocolate cake recipe:

 For the Cake:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (We used 1 cup of milk with 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar mixed together)
1 cup warm water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract.
 

For the Frosting:

2 sticks butter, at room temperature

1 cup creamy conventional peanut butter (all natural peanut butter gives it a weird texture and taste)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 Tablespoons milk (whatever kind you prefer, I used almond milk)

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

 

Extras needed:

Heath English Toffee Bits

Reece's minis; unwrapped

 

 

To make the cake:

All the dry ingredients are mixed together at low speed in the stand mixer for a few minutes until combined and then we added all the wet ingredients in making sure to mix together on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until well combined.   We divided our batter into two greased and floured cake pans and baked in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

It is a very runny cake batter but made a very moist cake.

Once the cake was cooked through and toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, I set the cakes to rest in the pans on a cooling rack. After an hour I took them out of the pans and let them continue cooling on the racks for another hour or 2. 

Once they were at room temperature I leveled the cakes then set to making my frosting. 

To make the frosting: 

Whip together the butter, peanut butter, vanilla and milk until creamy then add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. I find this makes less mess with the stand mixer. I like a lighter/mousse like consistency with my frosting so I often whip it on high speed for just a few minutes at the very end. 

 

Then I filled my piping bag and spread a thin layer on the bottom layer of the cake, sprinkled on a few handfuls (probably about 1/2 cup) of the Heath bits then pressed lightly with my hand to make sure the bits were in the frosting and wouldn't shift around when adding my second layer. 

 

I then spread a thin crumb coat of frosting over both layers and set it aside for a couple of hours to set.

  

I added a star tip to my piping bag, added a border around the top, filled it in with Heath and put a few mini Reese's around. Then I piped some stripes around the sides.