This Buffalo Peanut Stick Cake recreates The City of Light’s iconic doughnut! A moist springy yellow cake pairs perfectly with a buttercream that’s lightly flavored with honey and peanut butter. Finally it’s all encrusted in a hefty coating of honey roasted peanuts!
I may hate winter, but I have to put things in perspective. Buffalo always has it worse. If it’s cold here, it’s even colder there. If there’s a few inches of snow here, there’s over a foot of snow there.
When the weather is bitter, only a piping hot cup of coffee and a slab of this Buffalo Peanut Stick Cake will warm you up!
Peanut sticks are long logs of glory. Paula’s Donuts of Buffalo is renowned for this creation. It’s a cake, not yeasted, doughnut, coated in a thin glaze, and coated in crushed peanuts. Before the advent of gourmet city-slicker doughnuts, the Peanut Stick an old soul. It’s on par with the classics like French crullers or plain cake rings.
To conjure up the sensation of a doughnut, I used a combination of brown and white sugar. This duo of sugars recreates that fresh, just-out-of-the-fryer taste. The peanut stick cake isn’t greasy, but it has an ever lasting butteriness that doesn’t diminish. Egg yolks bolster this melty quality of the cake crumb even further.
Rather than using traditional peanuts, I opted for the salty-sweet combination of honey roasted peanuts, which balance the yellow butter cake. A hint of honey in the fluffy peanut butter frosting ties it all together.
You don’t have to freeze in Buffalo to enjoy this Buffalo Peanut Stick Cake!
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- For the Yellow Peanut Stick Cake:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks, 12 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cups buttermilk, room temperature
- For the Roasted Honey Peanut Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks, 12 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 ½ pounds powdered sugar
- 1 ¾ cups creamy peanut butter
- 1/3 cup heavy cream, room temperature
- 1 ½ tablespoons buckwheat honey
- 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- To assemble the Buffalo Peanut Stick Cake:
- 1 ½ cups finely ground honey roasted peanuts
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, grease three 8-inch cake pans with baking spray, set aside.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, set aside.
- Cube butter into a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add sugar and cream at medium-high speed, until light, pale, and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape down bowl and paddle.
- Lower mixer speed to medium and beat in eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla and scrape bowl and paddle.
- Lower speed to low. Add dry-ingredients in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in two additions, beginning and ending with the dry-ingredients. Give the batter a few scrapes by hand with a rubber spatula.
- Divide batter evenly between prepared pans, smoothing top and whacking batter to even out top. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating halfway. When done, cakes will be golden around the edges and a toothpick inserted will result with a few moist, not wet, crumbs. Do not over bake. Let cakes rest in pans for 5 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely. For a moister cake, wrap cooled cake layers individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Cube butter into a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat until pale, light, and fluffy, about 3 minutes, frequently scraping the bowl and paddle. With mixer on low, gradually add powdered sugar alternately with the peanut butter, that way the mixture doesn’t get too thick. Beat in heavy cream, vanilla, honey, and salt. Raise speed to medium-high and beat until whipped and fluffy, about 6 minutes, scrape the bowl and paddle to ensure a smooth frosting.
- If cakes have domes, use a serrated knife to level off the layers. Dollop a bit of frosting onto a cake board and secure the first layer. Apply a layer of frosting, sprinkle an even layer of crush peanuts, pressing peanuts into the frosting. Secure the second cake layer. Repeat process all over again, finishing the process by topping with the final third layer. Do a crumb coat to secure the cake. Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes. Apply a thicker, even layer of frosting and apply crush peanuts all over cake. Create a boarder using a star tip.
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