Peanut Butter Cake with Orioles Icing

After two weeks of patiently watching me carry the beautiful bounty of cake class off to work, Noel was ready for a cake of his own. Well, not quite of his own, but one to take to work and share with HIS coworkers. His rationale–his office was operating on a Beth Sweets deficit. Particularly since he had mustered his whole department to vote for 990 Square during last fall’s Mobbies competition. I could hardly argue.

This week’s project for cake class–image transfer. Basically you pick any picture you want, outline it on wax paper with decorating gel, and then smoosh the gel into the top of the cake to transfer the image. Then you color it in with technicolor icing. Okay, in reality there are more steps and you have to be more careful about it than the description suggests, but it’s a really great way to get a picture on a cake without resorting to that awful edible paper or a character pan.

Since it was Noel’s cake, I let him pick not only the type of cake, but also the image. The type of cake was a no brainer for him–peanut butter (now and forever!). But the image, that decision gave him pause. Ravens or Orioles? Such a tough choice. But in the end, he went with his first love–the Orioles.

So a brief pause to talk about the Orioles. Noel really, really loves the Orioles. Like if it was me or the Orioles, I think it might be the Orioles. If we ever have a kid, I better make sure not to be due around baseball playoff time, because with my luck, that would be the year that the Orioles would finally pull it together and I would be in Labor and Delivery alone because Noel would be somewhere watching the Orioles. Yes, they’ve been breaking his heart, pulling it out, and stomping on it for 12 straight seasons, but the man bleeds orange and black and there’s just no killing that kind of love. I used to consider myself an Orioles fan until I met Noel. But now I know I am mistaken. Noel is a FAN. He makes the rest of us look like amateurs.

So once Noel settled on the Orioles, we had a bit of back and forth about the design. He wanted the full old school Orioles logo with the bird. And while I agree that would be amazing on top of a round cake, I thought it was a bit much for my first try. So I went with the ever popular O logo that the team has been using for the past few years. Noel helped me size it and we were off.

But what I thought would be a super simple picture was not. Mostly because I wasn’t satisfied with just an “O” on top of my big white cake. But after some quick thinking (thanks to the combined brain power of me and my classmates!) we came up with this super cute idea for a baseball diamond and bunting. And at the end of the night with this cute cake in hand, even I was excited about the start of spring training! And maybe the O’s having a .500 season!

990 Square in the News: Oh my, I almost forgot to tell you all–I’m going to blame it on my brain being sidetracked by the imminent Snowmageddon–I was in the Baltimore Sun this past Wednesday talking about how I eat raw eggs and lived to blog about it.

Peanut Butter Cake
Adapted from Epicurious

I went for this cake because it calls for a lot of peanut butter, and therefore seemed likely to deliver the strong peanut butter flavor that Noel craves in his baked goods. I also wanted a cake strong enough to stand up to the sweetness of the icing that we use in class. And this cake, it delivered. It had an awesome smooth peanut butter flavor that had good mouth feel without being too heavy or too sweet. I got rave reviews back from Noel’s coworkers, about both the cake and the icing!

Baker’s Note–this cake was supposed to make three 8-inch layer cakes. I only needed two for class, so I decided to put the rest of the batter into a baby (6-cup) bundt. Whenever a cake makes more batter than you need, remember you can always make cupcakes or baby bundts and freeze them for later!

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned (natural) peanut butter
• 1 pound golden brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk, I used one cup of skim milk with one tablespoon of white vinegar added

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter three 8-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line bottoms with parchment paper. Sift first 4 ingredients into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and peanut butter in large bowl until blended. Beat in sugar. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla. At low speed, beat in flour mixture in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions.

Divide batter among pans and spread evenly. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool cakes 5 minutes. Turn out onto racks; peel off parchment. Cool cakes completely before icing.

I iced my cake with our class icing, which is a standard decorating buttercream (ie made with shortening, not butter). We then died segments of the white icing different colors with food gel to decorate. But if that doesn’t sound like a plan for you, hop on over to Epicurious and check out the icing they used!

So if you think the O’s cake is cool, you really need to click over here, and check out what Eileen did. Amazing!

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