My seven year old son is crazy about Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.  When he was little, he used to love buying the snack size bag of little peanut butter cups and would call them little cupcakes lol.  They are by far his favorite candy.  So this year on his birthday I decided to try and make him a giant peanut butter cup cake! This rich chocolatey cake is a layer of chocolate cake, peanut butter filling, another layer of chocolate cake, and covered in ganache.  It is a peanut butter cup lovers dream! 

 

To make this cake, I used a mold for a giant cupcake that I got on Amazon.  I cooked half of the batter of a cake box mix inside the mold, then cut it in half.  I made the ganache, then poured some into the clean mold.  I used a pastry brush and painted the chocolate ganache up the sides of the mold like this picture.

I let it freeze for about a half hour. Then I placed the bottom layer of chocolate cake, the peanut butter mixture, then the top cake.  After that, I covered the top of the cake with ganache and made sure to smooth it as perfectly as I  could with my off set spatula.

I set the cake in the freezer overnight.  Then in the morning I carefully took the mold off of the cake and it turned out like this!

Giant Peanut Butter Cup Cake

Ingredients

Cake

• chocolate cake box mix

Peanut Butter Filling

• 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (may add a little more or less peanut butter depending on preference)
• 6 T of confectioners sugar

• 12 ounces chocolate chips
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

Cake:

1. Make cake according to cake mix directions.  Cook half of the batter in the cake mold. You can do whatever you would like with the rest of the batter (make cake pops, make a second cake etc.)
2. Once cake is cool, push out of mold. Slice top of cake to level off, then cut cake into two layers. Carefully trim around the side of the cake. You want the two layers to be smaller than the inside of the mold so that it fits in with space around the edge.

Ganache:

1. Place the chocolate in a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
2. Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan and when it begins to bubble up, pour over the chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Gently stir, starting in the middle and working your way outward, until the cream and chocolate are completely mixed. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside. Let the ganache sit at room temperature over night.

PB layer:

1. Combine peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs, and confectioners sugar in food processor on high speed. Spoon onto a piece of wax or parchment paper.
2. Trace the bottom of the cupcake mold onto a piece of wax or parchment paper. Place this piece on top of peanut butter mixture and roll with a rolling pin until it extends to edges of drawn circle. Use a sharp knife to cut along inside of circle. Remove excess peanut butter.  Add it to the top of the peanut butter.
3. Place peanut butter in freezer to firm up a bit.

Assemble Cake:

1. Paint sides and bottom of mold with ganache.
2. Place first layer of cake circle, peanut butter layer, and then second layer of cake on top of hardened ganache. The circles should be the same, even size. I try to make my peanut butter layer thicker than the cake layers. Make certain that there is space between the fillings and the side of the mold so as to leave space for ganache.
3. Pour down sides of cake and peanut butter layers until filled, then on top to  totally cover.
4. Refrigerate or freeze until hardened. Peel from mold when fully firm.

Recipe by Sayitwithcake and 1finecookie

Enjoy!

 

Other Chocolate Peanut butter cakes you might like!