Peanut Butter Jelly Cake
I guess if I was a well known popular food blogger, I’d catch the reader’s attention with some sort of snazzy and quirky tag line. I’d then get all nostalgic drawing my motivation to make this peanut butter jelly cake from some fond warm memories of childhood’s most famous sandwich. I’d be all neutral and light hearted, raving about how great and moist and perfect this peanut butter jelly cake tastes. I’d rave about it’s delicious-ness and how everyone I knew enjoyed it.
I ain’t gonna lie, I didn’t share this cake.
Only me, my freezer, and my future self come in contact with this peanut butter jelly cake. It’s that good, sharing is not an option in my book.
I guess I’m cynical about life. Call me a desperate dreamer, but I was really counting on some magical lottery win.
On that same dry note, this love of peanut butter and jelly flavor for this peanut butter and jelly cake was a grown taste. Even though the sandwich inspired this cake, I still hate the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
As a kid you do not have much personal agency when it comes to school lunches. Peanut butter sandwiches (no jam, it was deemed too sugary) were despicable impostors of lunch food. Yet it was a frequent midday meal. I know nowadays people would have viewed a sandwich with brown bread and unsalted peanut butter to be healthy. But when you’re a child in the 90s you want dunkaroos and a carton of chocolate milk. I always felt like the crumbly healthy bread absorbed a tinny taste from the aluminum foil packaging. The peanut butter went one of two ways: a nasty oil slick when the oil wasn’t completely mixed in with the peanut mixture or painfully dry and unseasoned, ground like cement paste in the grocery store.
Nowadays I never touch said sandwich. However…I have touched, baked, and eaten peanut butter and jelly flavored things. The pairing of peanut butter and jelly is just right, fitting, like a worn pair of jeans. Though a traditional musky concord grape is a traditional jam or jelly flavor, I really enjoy the tartness that raspberry brings to the cake.
Speaking of the cake, the cake itself is a buttery and soft yellow cake. I used Grandbaby Cakes’s recipe for Real Deal Southern Caramel Cake. I added a bit of butter extract to both tint the batter and give it a rich, butter flavor to mimic a nice soft sandwich bread.
Peanut butter frosting and raspberry frostings can both get too sweet. Instead of using straight butter based frostings, I opted for a blend of cream cheese and butter. I used recipes from Completely Delicious and My Baking Addiction. Since my modus operandi is to go over board on the frosting, I made a double batch of each recipe. I had loads of frosting leftover, but it’s better to have leftover frosting than running out half way through piping borders.
- For the Yellow Cake:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2½ cups granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 6 large eggs plus 2 egg yolks, room temperature
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon butter extract
- For the Peanut Butter Frosting:
- 20 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 10 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- For the Raspberry Frosting:
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 7 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 6 tablespoons raspberry jam
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 tablespoon milk or cream
- pink food coloring
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 3 8-inch pans with baking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt, set aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar on a high speed until pale in color and fluffy, about 5 to 6 minutes. Reduce mixer to low, add the oil and mix until the mixture is fully incorporated. Another 2 to 4 minutes, at this point give the sides and bottom of the bowl a good scrape down.
- Mix in eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, until each egg is well incorporated. Add in vanilla and butter extract.
- With mixer on its lowest speed, alternate adding in flour mixture in 3 parts and sour creaming in 2 parts, ending with flour mixture, until mixed through.
- Do not over mix.
- Pour batter into individual cake pans evenly and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating halfway through. Do not over-bake these cakes.
- Remove cake pans from oven and cool the cakes in the pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
- Remove cakes from pans to cool completely.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and lump free, about 4 to 5 minutes.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the peanut butter, and beat until combine. Add in the vanilla extract.
- With the mixture on low, slowly add the powdered sugar until incorporated. If it gets too thick drop in a splash of milk.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter until smooth and fluffy, about 2 to 5 minutes. Add cream cheese and beat until fully combined and smooth.
- Add 1 cup powdered sugar and beat to fully combine. Add 1 Tablespoon of raspberry jam and beat until fully incorporated as well. Continue this process with the remaining powdered sugar and raspberry jam.
- Add vanilla and salt.
- Beat until well blended, smooth and fluffy. Slowly add 1 Tablespoon milk or cream and blend another 20 seconds or so. Finally add a drop of liquid or gel pink food coloring.
- Level off the cakes so each layer is flat.
- Fill two piping bags: one with the peanut butter frosting and one with the raspberry frosting. Starting from the center of the cake layer, frost a large dot and then surround the dot with a thick size-able ring-like bulls-eye. Alternate colors with each ring. Repeat with the second layer.
- Do a light crumb coating with the peanut butter frosting on the outside of the cake and let the cake chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
- Put decorative tips of each piping bag and pipe on any round shape of your choosing, make sure to alternate colors. Let the cake chill for a final 15 minutes. Finish the top and bottoms of the cake with decorative boarders.