Chocolate & Peanut Butter M&M Birthday Layer Cake

I do believe this is the first time I've ever baked anything with peanut butter and posted it to my blog! That is because up until very recently I wasn't a peanut butter fan at all, and to be honest I'm still not a 'eat peanut butter out the tub' kind of person but if you throw it into some baked goods then I'm definitely game! I made some peanut butter and chocolate brownies in the Caribbean, we ate them so quick they never even made it to the blog! so here is my first peanut butter entry for all you American and English loving PB fans out there! 

It was my brother-in-law's birthday on Thursday.  I asked him if he had a favourite chocolate bar, his reply was peanut M&M's so I started dreaming up what sort of cake I could bake him. Unfortunately it's been back to work this week so I did something which I've never done before and I bought a cake mix! just because I simply wouldn't have had time to bake one from scratch upon getting home from work and then going out for a meal, which by the way was a very delicious meal at Turtle Bay - a new Caribbean restaurant in Milton Keynes that I can highly recommend! and if you go during Happy Hour you can even enjoy 2-4-1 cocktails or some rather delicious passion fruit 'mocktails' as we did! 

So I baked the Betty Crocker mix, and whipped up some delicious peanut butter frosting which I could not stop eating so not too much made it onto the cake in the end! I decided to go all out with organic ingredients for the frosting to make up for the shame I felt of using a box mix! 

I then crushed up some peanut M&M's to sprinkle in the middle of the cake, which was no easy feat! they were pinging all over my kitchen! much to the delight of our resident dog here who was catching them in his mouth! 

After I frosted the top of the cake, I struggled for a while to think of how to decorate it.  Peanut M&M's are so unevenly shaped that it's hard to arrange them in any sort of pattern without it looking lame, I know - I tried! So I scrapped that idea, refrosted the top of the cake and decided a drizzle of chocolate was the way forward.  I melted some of my chocolate easter egg, yes I still have some - I got SO many! and snipped the end off a ziploc bag and went to town on the top of the cake.  I then whipped up a small amount of vanilla frosting and added some of the melted chocolate to it to make chocolate frosting which I piped on to the cake and finished off with a peanut M&M on top of each swirl! 

and how did it taste I hear you ask? I don't know!!!! is the rather annoying answer.  I made the cake on Thursday evening and the 21 year old birthday boy has been pubbing and clubbing it up every night since, so we haven't seen him and we haven't been able to eat the cake! It's Midday Saturday now and I'm waiting for him to surface so hopefully we can finally get a piece! 

If you want to make this delicious peanut butter frosting here is the recipe:

2 cups Icing Sugar

1/4 cup semi-skimmed milk

1/4 cup unsalted organic unsalted butter

1/2 cup smooth organic peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

1. Blend everything together until smooth.  If you require a thicker consistency add more sugar, if you need it to be thinner add more milk.  Enjoy!