I made a cake

On Saturday it was my friend Liosliath's birthday. i made her a cake - peanut butter cake! i decorated it with monkey faces and bananas because she likes Africa.

I thought i would be more adventurous with my cake making, and because i know Lios likes peanut butter, and because i like peanut butter a lot too, i decided to make a peanut butter cake.

Here is the recipe. I might have put a bit too much yogurt in mine as i think my scales are unreliable. But it was really delicious, despite my fears that it didn't bake properly (maybe it is meant to be quite dense and stodgy)

What you need to make the cake is...
200g butter (plus some more to grease your tins)
3 tablespoons of smooth peanut butter for the mixture and 2 more for the middle - but you don't really need to measure for that - just put as much as you like is a good way.
4 large eggs
200g golden caster sugar
150g pot natural yogurt
200g self-raising flour

To make Chocolate topping you need
100g Milk Chocolate
2 tablespoons of milk

First step is to turn the oven on to 180 degrees so it can be warming up ready.

The Cake
The way i make a cake mixture is by creaming together the butter and sugar and adding the eggs one at a time with a spoon full of flour and blending, then add the rest of the flour. Then with this i added the peanut butter and yogurt. (maybe a bit too much yogurt, and i used low fat, but this might not have been wise) in the future i might just use a couple of tablespoons of milk.

Grease your tins - 2 round ones i used, i am not sure of the size of them but about 8 or 9 inches across (you can see the cake is on a tea plate there) and pour equal amounts into each.

Bake for half an hour (that's what the recipe says, but mine too about 50 minutes - this might be an issue with my oven though - and the amount of yogurt i used) they should be golden on top and round the edges, but check by poking with a fork, and if it comes out clean it means 'ready'.

Leave them to cool five minutes in the tins before turning out. (this was the stage mine sank. that has never happened to me before so it was quite a distressing time. i felt helpless) I have learnt, always make sure the cakes are totally cool before decorating (to avoid icing meltage), so this means you can have a hearty cup of tea and maybe do some other activities before assembling and topping.

Finishing off
To do this, i trimmed the cakes where the tops had inflated, and spread one with peanut butter. the original recipe also says to use some Dulce du Leche (or something i couldn't find) but i think that is like toffee sauce so you could use that. Banana might be nice too. Or marmalade. or chocolate butter icing. Then pop the other on top to make a sandwich.

Make some chocolate topping by melting 100g chocolate with 2 tablespoons of milk and spread this on the top. The original recipe suggested putting some salted peanuts in a bowl with a teaspoon of water and a tablespoon of icing sugar to coat them, and then toast them in the oven at 200 degrees for ten minutes, and then sprinkling those on top. I just used monkey faces and bananas and hundreds and thousands.

Verdict
I will definitely be trying this cake again, it was tasty and not too sweet. i don't think it baked so well though and i think that is because i put yogurt in it and i think that was wrong.

I give this cake Seven out of Ten.

Here is Liosliath enjoying that on her Birthday. She also had a caterpillar chocolate cake from her other friends. i hope i get TWO birthday cakes.

Much love,
Baker