Success!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Cream Cheese and Butterfinger Frosting

Well, my efforts to create a homemade cake met with success. Could it be that my cake curse has lifted?

I encountered two minor difficulties. First I had a little trouble getting the layers out of the pan, even with parchment paper on the bottom of the cake pan. I think the cake was moist and dense enough that it didn't just pop right out like some cakes do. Still, I was more relaxed trying to get them out than I have been in the past because I now know that you can pretty easily hide a torn chunk or two. After some loosening and tapping, I managed to free the cakes pretty well unscathed. I have found that when I use shortening to grease the pans, the cakes seem to pop out more easily - this time I used butter and had more trouble, so next time it's back to shortening.


The only other problem I saw was that the icing was a little too runny for my tastes. I love a whipped cream topping, but I was seriously afraid to leave this cake out of the refrigerator for very long for fear the delicate icing would start to melt and run right off the cake! If I were to make this again, I would consider adding a little less whipped cream to see if I could get a firmer icing. I managed to do a little decorative piping around the bottom, but it was really a little too thin to do hold the form well.


The cake itself was quite moist - I didn't seem to have any of the dryness problems cited by several reviewers on Epicurious. I froze the layers overnight to make them easier to handle and easier to ice. I also didn't have any problems with the filling oozing, but I was careful to make the filling the night before and I did not spread it too close to the ends of the cake layers. After adding the filling, I froze the cake again for a couple of hours to allow the filling to set. I then frosted the cake and returned it to the refrigerator as quickly as possible to allow the icing to chill. I wonder if the icing would have been less runny if I had allowed it to chill overnight with the filling? I also chilled the Butterfingers after I chopped them to try to prevent any bleeding.

Everyone enjoyed the cake and it was very tasty. I have plenty of chocolate/PB filling leftover. I'd love to make some PB cookies and using this as a filling, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to it.........

I'll be back later today with a contribution to WDB.....