Sex & Chocolate

Today is the Hubby's birthday.  In the years prior to having a child, our celebrations usually entailed travel to exotic locales, insanely expensive dinners, and lots of sex.  Thanks to our new status as "parents" it looks like this year's excitement won't be all that exciting.  I'm going to attempt to bake him his favorite chocolate peanut butter cake, assuming I can figure out how to do this while also holding a baby.  As for the sex, while I'm pretty sure there won't be lots of it, I'm willing to give it the ol' college try.  Assuming we can both stay awake long enough.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Cake:

2 cups gluten free flour mix

2–1/2 cups sugar

3/​4 cup unsweet­ened cocoa pow­der

2 tsp bak­ing soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp xan­than gum

1 cup oil (veg­etable or canola)

1 cup cultured almond milk yogurt

1–1/2 cups water

2 Tbs apple cider vine­gar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

Peanut But­ter Frost­ing:

10 ounces dairy-free "cream cheese" (room tem­per­a­ture)

1 stick Earth Balance (room tem­per­a­ture)

4–5 cups pow­der sugar (sifted)

2/​3 cup creamy peanut but­ter

Choco­late Peanut But­ter Glaze:

8 ounces semi-​​sweet choco­late

3 Tbs creamy peanut but­ter

2 Tbs agave syrup

1/​2 cup unsweetened almond milk

Makes a three layer eight inch cake

Bake cakes at 350 degrees F for 30–35 minutes

For the cake: Whisk together all the dry ingre­di­ents in a large bowl or stand mixer bowl. Stir in oil and sour cream. Grad­u­ally beat in the water. Mix in vine­gar and vanilla. Finally, whisk in the eggs and beat until thor­oughly mixed.

Grease three 8 inch cake pans with but­ter. Line the bot­tom of the pan with parch­ment paper. Divide the bat­ter equally between the three pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30–35 min­utes or until a tooth­pick comes out clean.

While the cake is in the oven, it’s a good time to make the frost­ing. Beat the but­ter and cream cheese together. Add pow­dered sugar 1 cup at a time and mix slowly at first to avoid send­ing sugar all through­out your house. Taste the frost­ing for sweet­ness after about the third cup of sugar. Sweeten to your lik­ing. Finally, mix in the peanut but­ter until thor­oughly combined.

When the cake is done bak­ing, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for about 20 min­utes. Invert the cakes onto a wire rack or a large cookie sheet. I would sug­gest lin­ing the wire rack or cookie sheet with parch­ment prior to invert­ing the cakes to avoid the cake stick­ing to the rack or pan.

Once the cakes have cooled com­pletely, the frost­ing can begin. Check out the smit­ten kitchen for some great tips and tech­niques for frost­ing the cake. Begin with one layer, use about 2/​3 cup frost­ing to frost the layer. Add the next layer and repeat. Add the third layer and (you guessed it) repeat. Frost the sides of the cake. You may have some frost­ing left over. Place the cake in the freezer for about 15 min­utes which will allow the glaze to solid­ify as it is poured over the top.

To make the choco­late glaze, com­bine choco­late, peanut but­ter, and corn syrup in a dou­ble boiler. Whisk fre­quently until melted and com­bined. Remove from heat and whisk in half and half until smooth. Pour the choco­late glaze over the top of the cake, allow­ing it to run down the sides.