This absolute beauty of a cake has three layers of peanut butter cake, peanut butter buttercream and is decorated with Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and Reese’s Pieces. It is the ultimate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake.

It is A Spoonful of Vanilla’s second birthday today so we obviously had to celebrate with cake! And what better cake than this completely OTT Peanut Butter dream cake?

Reasons To Love This Recipe

Peanut Butter – Okay, so if you don’t like Peanut Butter then you are definitely not going to like this cake! Absolutely everything in this cake is Peanut Butter flavoured the cake, the buttercream even the decorations.

Naked Cake- I decided to go for a naked cake look with this cake and I think it looks perfect. It also means if you’re not completely confident in crumb coating and decorating a cake then you don’t need to worry.

Perfect Birthday Cake – This is the perfect cake to celebrate a birthday. Especially with someone who loves Peanut Butter and Reese’s. I always think an 8” cake is the perfect size to share with friends and family.

Peanut Butter Cake

I kind of based this cake on my Chocolate & Peanut Butter Drip Cake but instead, I made all three layers of the cake Peanut Butter flavoured.

To start with I always preheat my oven and line my cake tins. That way everything is ready to go when the cake batter is ready and I can put them straight into the oven.

With the cake batter, you can use either unsalted salted butter or a baking spread like Stork. I tend to use Stork because I think it makes a lighter cake but it is completely up to you.

I also used light brown sugar in this recipe. This just gives the cake a little hint of caramelly flavour which works perfectly with the Peanut Butter, if you don’t have any light brown sugar or don’t want to use it, that is completely fine. Just use caster sugar instead and the cake will still work out perfectly.

Related Recipes

Peanut Butter Cookies

Chocolate Peanut Butter Drip Cake

Snickers Showstopper Cake

In this recipe, I used Reese’s Creamy Peanut Butter but you could use a crunchy version if you prefer. It just means your cake will have little crunchy pockets.

When adding in the eggs, I use 1 egg for every 50g of self-raising flour I use. So, for example, in this case, I used 400g of self-raising flour so I used 8 eggs.

To stop the cake from being too dry I add milk to it. Please don’t leave this out, if you do your cake will end up being super dry. The milk helps keep it lovely and soft and moist (sorry!)

Once you have mixed all the ingredients together split the mixture into the three cake tins. There are a couple of ways you can do this. You could measure the batter out; this is the way I do it because then I know that each cake is going to be the same. You could also just eyeball it and scoop it in until they all look even.

How Do I Know the Cakes Are Baked?

There are a couple of different ways to tell when the cakes are baked. You can gently press the top of the cake down with your finger, if it springs back when you remove your finger then it is ready. If your finger leaves a dent in the top of the cake then it isn’t ready. Pop it back into the oven for 3-4 minutes and repeat, until the cake springs back.

Another way to tell if the cake is baked is by using a cake skewer. Your cake will most likely dome in the middle so I always make sure that I test the thickest part of the cake. If the cake tester or skewer comes out clean then the cake is ready. If there is cake batter on the skewer then you need to put the cake back into the oven for 3-4 minutes and repeat until the skewer comes out clean.

Cooling the Cakes

Leave the cakes too cool for 15-20 minutes in the cake tin before transferring them to a wire rack to cool fully.

A little tip is if your cakes have a dome on top if you put them on the wire rack upside down (dome side down) the weight of the cake will flatten the dome and you won’t need to level them off.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

Hello, the best buttercream I have ever tasted! EVER! The buttercream on this cake is American buttercream. This means that it is made using unsalted butter and icing sugar.

Please, please, please use unsalted butter for the buttercream. If you don’t and use a baking spread or margarine it will just make the buttercream so oily and not firm it will just be slopping everywhere. You need to use unsalted butter the kind you get in the supermarket that is wrapped in foil. It comes in a block.

Mix the butter and icing sugar together until it is thick and creamy. Then add in the peanut butter. For the buttercream, I would recommend using smooth peanut butter. If you are planning on piping it onto the top of the cake the crunchy pieces in the peanut butter will get stuck in the piping tip.

When you add the peanut butter the buttercream will go quite dry. To combat this, add in 1 tablespoon of milk and mix. Repeat until the buttercream is the perfect consistency.

Decorating the Cake

To decorate the cake, place the first cake onto your serving plate or board and pipe the buttercream onto the top of the cake. I used a large round nozzle. Place the second cake on top and pipe the buttercream on and repeat with the third cake.

Decorate the top of the cake with as many Reese’s products as you can get your hands on. I used Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and I cut some into halves and quarters to sprinkle over the top. I also used Peanut Butter Pieces.

Alternative

You could make the buttercream chocolate instead of peanut butter. Just replace 25g of icing sugar with cocoa powder.

You could also soften any leftover peanut butter in the microwave for 10-20 seconds and drizzle it over the top of the cake.

Equipment

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If you do have any questions about this Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake or any other recipes on my blog you can contact me either by sending me a DM on social media or an email. You can find all my details on the right-hand side of this page.

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