Julie Clark
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Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake
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Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake is a moist chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and buttercream frosting! Perfect for the Reese’s lover in your life!
We had the idea of this amazing chocolate peanut butter Reese’s Cake a month ago for a friend’s birthday cake. Peanut butter, chocolate, cake, (I couldn’t pass up any of those!). I’m a cake person, but not an icing fan. People tell me I’m crazy because of that.
But I have found a couple of icings I really like. This chocolate peanut butter Reese’s cake has peanut butter frosting that I just can’t keep out of. It’s my dream cake.
❤️ Why you’ll love this chocolate peanut butter cake recipe:
- 100% homemade
- Fudgy dark chocolate cake
- Melt in your mouth chocolate and peanut butter buttercream frosting
- Like a Reese’s cup, but so much better. You’ll fall in love with the chopped Reese’s cups all over the top of the cake.
We have made this cake for countless birthdays and holidays. It’s featured beautifully in our homemade black forest cake. And although we don’t normally sell our baked goods, we’ve sold quite a few of these cakes to family and friends. It’s that good.
What is the secret to a super moist cake?
This is my favorite homemade chocolate cake to make because it’s easy and it turns out perfectly moist every time.
In this recipe, buttermilk is the secret to making the cake super moist. Buttermilk adds fat and also tenderizes the cake, breaking down the strands of gluten.
The Parts of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
This overloaded chocolate peanut butter cake has 4 delicious parts.
- Chocolate Cake. If you’ve never made cake from scratch before, this is the one to start with. It’s foolproof and has texture most like a box cake mix.
- Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting. You know those little chocolate peanut butter buckeye candies? This frosting tastes like the center of a buckeye.
- Chocolate Buttercream. I have been making this chocolate buttercream for close to 20 years. It will melt in your mouth.
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Of course you wouldn’t have to use these, but candy makes everything better, right? If you agree, you may also love our peanut butter Snickers cake.
Our Favorite Chocolate Cake Recipe
I’ll step you through making this from scratch chocolate cake. It’s the perfect base for just about any frosting, so keep this recipe on hand.
- Prepare. Preheat oven to 350º Fahrenheit. Grease and flour 2 round 9-inch cake pans. You can also line the pans with parchment paper if you want to ensure the cakes come out cleanly.
- Mix dry ingredients. For the cake, put flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Use a whisk to whisk the ingredients well.
- Mix wet ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a mixing bowl using a hand mixer), mix the buttermilk, oil, eggs, vanilla together.
- Combine the two. Slowly add in the mix of dry ingredients while the mixer is on low.
- Add coffee. Trust me. Add the coffee and make sure everything is combined. The coffee enhances the chocolate flavor. 😋 The cake batter will be very thin.
- Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Cool. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Loosen the edges of the cake with a knife, then turn the cakes out on parchment paper or a wire rack to cool completely before you frost them.
Make the Frostings
While the cakes are cooling whip up the peanut butter frosting and the chocolate frosting. The key with both is to beat the butter first until it is almost white in appearance. Then add the rest of the ingredients.
A stand mixer is the easiest way to beat homemade frostings and have them end up light and fluffy. If you don’t have a stand mixer, use a high powered hand mixer.
Assembling the Cake
- Place one cake layer on a cake plate.
- Use an offset spatula to spread on peanut butter frosting on one half.
- Then put the other cake layer on top.
- There’s no need to crumb coat the cake, simply spread that delicious Chocolate Buttercream Frosting all over the entire cake. If your cake is not even, just make the icing a little thicker in the places it needs to be to make an even-looking cake.
At this point, you could stop. After all, the cake will look and taste delicious as it is!
I like to decorate cakes, so I took this cake one step further. It’s really not as hard as it looks. You can totally do this.
Decorating a Cake with Wilton Tips
- Take a Wilton 2D tip (1M also works well) and put it in an icing bag. Fill the bag with icing and squeeze the frosting down to get out the air bubbles.
- You can decorate it any way you want and with any tip you want, but to get the look that I have on this cake, just squeeze until your star is the size you want it and pull away to make dollop on the cake. I put stars all around the top and bottom edges of the Reese’s cake.
Then cut up Reese’s into small pieces and sprinkle them over the top as desired.
Recipe Variations
Want even more chocolate goodness? Try making chocolate ganache, spreading it over the top of the cake and letting it drip down the sides. It’s what we did on this version and it looks beautiful.
Have chocolate chips to use up? Sprinkle the top with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips instead of Reese’s cups.
Love peanut butter more than chocolate? Make a peanut butter cake as the base.
Storage Instructions
- Room temperature: Store in an airtight container on the counter for up to 24 hours.
- Refrigerator: Store this cake in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Bring to room temperature before eating.
- Freezer: Freeze the cake whole or sliced in an airtight container for up to 2 months. I double wrap by wrapping in plastic wrap, then placing the wrapped pieces in another storage container. Thaw at room temperature before eating.
Reese’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
Reese’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake is a moist chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and buttercream frosting! Perfect for the Reese’s lover in your life!
Servings 15 servings
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Ingredients
Chocolate Layer Cake:
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder*
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
- 2 large eggs (room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup freshly brewed strong hot coffee
Peanut Butter Frosting:
- 1/2 cup salted butter (room temperature)
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter**
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoon milk or heavy cream
Chocolate Buttercream:
- 1 cup salted butter (room temperature)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 4 tablespoons heavy cream
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to decorate, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º Fahrenheit. Grease and flour 2 round 9-inch cake pans.
- For the cake, put flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Use a whisk to whisk the ingredients well.
- In a stand mixer, mix the buttermilk, oil, eggs, vanilla together.
- Slowly add in the mix of dry ingredients while the mixer is on low.
- Add the coffee and make sure everything is combined. The batter will be very thin.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack. While the cakes are cooling, make your frostings.
Peanut Butter Frosting:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and peanut butter for 2 minutes.
- Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and mix until blended.
- Add 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and beat until completely blended.
- Add in the remaining cup of powdered sugar. Beat for 1 minute.
- Test the frosting and if you need another tablespoon or two of heavy cream to make the frosting spreadable, add it in.
Make the Chocolate Buttercream.
- In a stand mixer with the beater blade, beat the butter for 1-2 minutes until it is smooth, creamy and nearly white in appearance.
- Add in the salt and vanilla. Mix until incorporated.
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in the powdered sugar and cocoa powder.
- Add the heavy cream, a tablespoon at a time, mixing slowly until it is the consistency that you'd like.
- Beat for 1 minute on medium speed until smooth and creamy.
Assemble the Cake:
- Place one cake layer on a plate.
- Frost the top of the first cake with the Peanut Butter Frosting. Then layer the other half of the cake on top. Frost the outside of the cake with the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.
- Pipe flowers on top with the leftover Peanut Butter Frosting and/or decorate as desired with chopped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Video
Notes
*Dutch process cocoa powder is great for this cake.
**Skippy or Jif are our preferred brands of peanut butter.
The calories shown are based on the cake being cut into 15 pieces, with 1 serving being 1 slice of cake. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate. **We are not dietitians and recommend you seek a nutritionist for exact nutritional information. The information in the nutrition box are calculated through a program and there is room for error. If you need an accurate count, I recommend running the ingredients through your favorite nutrition calculator.**
Originally published on April 20, 2013.
Nutrition
Serving: 130g | Calories: 587kcal | Carbohydrates: 76g | Protein: 8g | Fat: 30g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Cholesterol: 46mg | Sodium: 518mg | Potassium: 309mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 58g | Vitamin A: 295IU | Calcium: 55mg | Iron: 2.2mg
Tools to Make This Cake
If you plan on making this or other cake recipes, here are tools that will help.
- Stand Mixer: A hand mixer will work, but I always find it easier to make frostings with a stand mixer.
- Beater Blade with Scraper: The best invention ever!
- 9” Round Cake Pan: These are my favorite pans!
- Straight Icing Spatula: The long straight spatula makes it easy to smooth frosting.
- Wire Cooling Racks: This will help your cakes cool more quickly.
- Wilton 1M Tip: For piping pretty swirls on cupcakes.
Other Reese’s Recipes to Love
If you love Reese’s peanut butter cups as much as we do, try one of these recipes:
Reese’s Trifle Reese’s Cake Reese’s Truffles Reese’s Sweet Rolls Reese’s Brownies Monster Cookies Reese’s Cheesecake Bars 
Reese’s Zucchini Muffins 
Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies Reese’s Ice Cream Sandwiches Reese’s Layer Cake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
I just made this cake. Seriously the best dessert I’ve ever made and I am not a skilled baker at all!
Hi Julie, Could you please mention the measurements in metric.
I’ve made this cake a couple of times now, super decadent and delicious. Including ingredient weights really helps, I got them from another recipe with identical ingredients but with weights. Notably, 220g AP flour and 65g cocoa powder for the cake. And I made a bit more of the chocolate buttercream frosting. Definitely the prettiest cake I’ve made!
Amazing Recipe! I don’t love canola oil so next time i would replace that with melted butter. But the original recipe was unbelievable. The most moist cake I have ever made (maybe bc of the oil haha). I had so much peanut butter frosting left over that I when back made every other flower into a bigger flower. If you do put chopped up peanut butter cups in the middle I recommend chopping them finely because it made my cake a little hard to cut into. I also used dark chocolate peanut butter cups from trader joes and it was… Read more »
I saw this recipe and decided to do something different for my daughter’s birthday cake request as she wanted a peanut butter cake. So glad I tried this. It did not disappoint. It was amazing and everyone loved it. Thank you for sharing the recipe! The salt in the icing was perfect!! What a great recipe. Thanks again, I wouldn’t change a thing about this recipe
GLUTEN FREE- I just made this cake for
My 14yo”s birthday. We are 100% gluten free and I made this recipe exactly as it is written except I used Bob’s red mill 1to1 gluten free flour. It was so good. I made the cakes 24 hours ahead of time and iced them today. The cake was so incredibly moist and rich and perfect!! I had to make my own powdered sugar because we also have a corn allergy, but that is easy to do as well.
So glad to have found this since I am already familiar with Sally’s Chocolate Cake recipe!
If I use just the peanut butter frosting all over the cake (no chocolate frosting at all), will the cake still taste good? I want to have a good balance of the chocolate and PB.
Also, will the amount stated in the recipe be enough?
I have to make this cake in two days and have no time to experiment 😉
Made this for my sister who can’t live without peanut butter and chocolate! She absolutely loved this and I ended up stealing a bit for myself :). The buttercream is so smooth and the cake was so rich, it’s the perfect cake! I added a few Reese’s pieces in between and on top of the cake and that was just the cherry on top!
So beautiful! Made this for my boyfriends birthday. It was a hit with everyone! Followed the recipe to a T and it was perfect. Topped with Reece’s and Reece’s pieces!
Mine did not rise ?
Will the cake be affected if I don’t use the coffee?
I am in the UK and want t make this for my daughters 16th birthday. Could you tell me how much a cup is in either ounces or grams please as there seems to be more than one answer when I google it?
Thanks, Sarah
My son and I made this for his birthday tomorrow. It came out nice and I can’t wait to eat it.
I made this cake for my husband’s birthday yesterday. WOW! The cake itself was so moist and dense and the peanut butter frosting was perfection. I have added this to my recipe box and will certainly be making it again. The only thing I did differently was sub out the buttermilk with 1 Tbsp white vinegar in 1 cup of milk in order to avoid a trip to the store. 10/10!!!
This cake is fabulous! You will not be disappointed! It was the show stopper Groom’s cake at my daughter’s wedding and my son in law’s hands down favorite cake.