HTEAC Does Business: "Over the Hill!" 40th Birthday Cake

I'm gonna start a new grouping of posts for my paid orders. I'm calling it HTEAC Does Business (sticking with the theme from my HTEAC Does Dinner section). One of our loyal wing nighters asked me to do her boyfriend John's 40th birthday cake. She wanted to do the "Over the Hill" theme with lots of black frosting. Thank goodness he likes chocolate because it is SO awful trying to make black vanilla buttercream. She told me he loves Reese's and asked me to do a cake and cupcakes using chocolate and peanut butter as the main flavors. For the cake, I used a peanut butter cake recipe from a book I recently got, Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott, and I added some mini chocolate chips to the batter. For the frosting, I used regular decorator's buttercream for the colors. And for the black frosting I made chocolate peanut butter frosting. I hate decorating cakes, and if I didn't have help from my mom (who took a gazillion Wilton classes back in the day and can decorate character cakes in her sleep) this cake would've looked terrible. We teamed up and did a pretty awesome job, considering my mom hasn't done a cake in over 10 years and I absolutely loathe cake decorating.

And if you suck at making flowers like I do, try this method. Use a small star tip (I think I used #18) and make a swirl from the inside out. It looks sorta like a flower!

Now let me talk a little more about this cake recipe. It uses the mixing method of coating the flour with fat before adding the wet ingredients. This prevents the flour from absorbing the wet ingredients and thus prevents the development of gluten. Meaning, you can stop worrying so much about over-mixing your cake batter. At first, this method always made me nervous because it's pounded into our heads that we should never over-mix the batter after the flour is added. But after a bit of practice, I actually prefer this mixing method. This particular recipe is mixed for over 2 1/2 minutes and the cake comes out perfectly soft and moist! It's like a cake miracle! :D

PS: If you only wanna make 6 or 7 cupcakes, make 1/4 of the recipe. (It works, I tried it!)

James McNair's Peanut Cake (from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott)
Makes 2 9-inch round layers; or about 28 cupcakes [1/4 recipe in green makes about 7 cupcakes]
4 eggs (1 egg)
1 cup milk (1/4 cup)
1/4 cup peanut oil or vegetable oil (1 Tbsp)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (1/2 tsp)
3 cups all-purpose flour (3/4 cup)
1 tablespoon baking powder (3/4 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit)
2 cups sugar (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened (2 Tbsp)
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (not "natural" peanut butter) (2 Tbsp)
3/4 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips (my own addition) (1/4 cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare baking pans. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla and whisk to blend well. Set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl of a mixer, and stir with a fork to mix well. Add the sugar and use the mixer at low speed or a fork to mix these dry ingredients together well, about 30 seconds. Add the butter and peanut butter and beat at medium speed until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs, about 45 seconds. Add about 1 1/4 cups of the milk mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes, and then stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining milk mixture, beat for 30 seconds, stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat again until creamy smooth, about 30 seconds more. (Fold in the chocolate chips, if using.)
Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula. Bake for 25-30 minutes (or 15-17 minutes for cupcakes), until the cake springs back when touched gently in the center and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks or folded kitchen towel for 5 to 10 minutes. Then turn out the cakes onto the racks to cool completely.