Peanutbutter & Jelly layer-cake

[DetlefK]

I was looking for a recipe where your cake is alternating layers of dough and jelly. Couldn't find after searching for 10 seconds online. So I invented one.

for a spring-form pan, 20cm (8&quot diameter and 10cm (4&quot deep (equal to volume of ~3.14 liters)

1. step: jelly
- 300-350g jelly
- 2 egg-whites
Put jelly in a pot and stir with a spoon until creamy. Beat egg-whites until stiff. Fold into jelly. Off to the fridge.

2. step: dough
- 2 egg-yolks
- 100g sugar (my guess: approx. 3-5 tablespoons)
- 50g soft butter (approx. 1 tablespoon)
- 1 huge tablespoon of crunchy peanut-butter
- 1 pinch of salt
- 200g flour
- half a teaspoon of baking-soda
- 200ml milk
Mix everything except flour, baking-soda and milk until it has an even coloring. (Warning: Peanutbutter makes a dough extremely viscous.)
Mix baking-soda and flour.
Keep on stirring the egg-butter-sugar-mix and gradually add flour and milk little by little.

3. step: the pan
Line the pan with baking-paper.
Preheat oven to 180°C (~350°F).

4. step: layer
This is my method. (I'm right-handed.) Fell free to invent your own ways to prevent your kitchen-table from turning into a mess.
Three pots in front of you: The pot with the jelly-mix to your left, with a tablespoon in it. The baking pan in the middle. The pot with the dough to your right, with a tablespoon in it.
Put two spoons of dough into the pan and spread on the bottom.
Now the layering:
Pour two spoons of jelly-mix exactly into the center of the pan. Wipe spoon clean with your left middle-finger. Return spoon to jelly-pot.
Pour two spoons of dough exactly into the center of the pan. Wipe spoon clean with your left index-finger. Return spoon to dough-pot.
Repeat until you've used them up.
(One spoonful per layer gives the cake a spotted structure. At least two for a layer-structure.)
If the heap looks to steep, carefully knock on the pan until it spreads out.

5. step: baking
All in all about 45-50 minutes at 180°C/350°F. Cover the cake at half-time with a baking-paper or the egg-whites on top turn black.

[LancetChick]

1. What, no photos?

Inventing cakes is ballsy, I have to say. I may have to do the same thing after yesterday, when I picked up a slice of Niagara Falls cake at the grocery store. For bought cake it was delicious! Layers of chocolate cake, what tasted like dark chocolate ganache and white buttercream. No recipe, though, since it was invented by a restaurant near here in the San Fran bay area and they are guarding the recipe.

Peanut butter cake. And jelly. Well, peanut butter pie is my favorite pie, especially covered in chocolate. If I were to invent a peanut butter cake I think I might use a few tips from the pie, which uses quite a bit of peanut butter, but lightens it with whipped cream. I think I'd make a peanut butter genoise, using a fair amount of peanut butter, and lighten it with beaten egg whites instead, as you did with the jelly.

Then I would make two layers of plain strawberry jam, maybe covering one with a layer of chocolate ganache, and spreading chocolate buttercream between all layers and all around.

Or a chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream. Hey, this is fun!

So how did your cake turn out? How would you tweak it?

[DetlefK]

2. Actually, this is the tweaked version :D

The first trial was just dough and strawberry jam. Problem: The jam was so heavy that it sunk to the bottom. In the end the lower layers contained nearly all of the jam and it spilled out when I tried to cut the cake into pieces. (I had to flip it upside-down and also served it that way.) That's why I stiffened the jam with egg-whites in the second trial.

And I used just one spoonful per layer which lead to a spotty structure instead of layers.

Peanutbutter isn't suitable for all kinds of cakes: It makes doughs really sticky and it gives a "heavy" taste that has to be balanced with something extremely sweet.



And for the photos: I don't know where to upload them so I could deep-link them here. (And I have to look up if I have photos of this particular cake at all...)

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. Photobucket.

www.photobucket.com

Simple, easy, no probs.

It's what I've been using for a long time.

[grasswire]

4. found a recipe for Niagara Falls cake

...but no frosting for it.

http://thotchi.wordpress.com/tag/recipe/

[LancetChick]

5. I did see that

and it cuts out way too soon! What are the bittersweet chocolate layers? Are they bittersweet? Are they ganache? If they are, how runny do you make it? Thicker for between the layers so that you need a spatula to spread it and thinner on top so that it runs over the buttercream? The chocolate cake part is just the beginning, I'm afraid. And then there's the buttercream, but that's the least of it.

Thanks, though.