Peanut Butter Cake with Caramelised Nuts

To the girl who believes in God's providence

This cake was created upon request by a very close girlfriend who wanted to make a birthday cake for her friend who likes peanut butter, chocolate and nuts. Hence I created this recipe and invited my girlfriend to make this together last Saturday. After taking in lessons for the failure from the first attempt, our second attempt turned out beautifully (or to be precise, I left my girlfriend to attempt for the second time herself while I made our seafood feast - so the cake pictured was solely her work!). This combination worked perfectly- a moist fluffy peanut butter cake covered with chocolate icing and topped with crunchy sugared nuts.

Serves 4-6

For the peanut butter cake

1. 115g unsalted butter
2. 100g peanut butter
3. 260g caster sugar
4. 2 eggs
5. 130g plain flour
6. 30g cornflour
7. 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
8. a pinch of salt
9. 150ml milk
10. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the chocolate icing

1. 45g unsalted butter
2. 100g dark chocolate
3. 100g icing sugar
4. 2 teaspoons golden syrup
5. 75ml soured cream
6. ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the caramelised nuts

1. 100g mixed nuts
2. 35g caster sugar
3. 10g water
4. 5g butter

Method:

• Grease two 6 inch round cake tins (with loose bottoms) and line with baking parchment.
• Preheat oven to 160c.
• Cream butter and peanut butter until well combined. Add in sugar and mix. Add one egg at a time and stir well after each addition. Add milk and vanilla extract and stir well.
• In another bowl, sieve in flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt.
• Combine the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix until combined.
• Pour the batter into two cake tins.
• Bake for about 40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
• Cool cake in tins on wire rack for 10 minutes and then turn out the cakes to cool completely.
• Meanwhile, prepare the chocolate icing by melting chocolate and butter in a bowl placed above a pan of simmering water (please make sure the water is not touching the base of the bowl). Let it cool for a while.
• Then, add golden syrup, sour cream and vanilla extract to the cooled chocolate mixture and stir well to combine.
• Sieve in icing sugar a little at a time and stir; check whether the icing is of your desired consistency and thickness. I found 100g of icing sugar to be more or less the right amount (I don’t want the icing turns rock-hard when cold).
• With serrated knife, cut each cake so that the top is level.
• Place one cake layer on a cake stand and spoon 1/3 mixture of the icing sugar on it, spreading evenly.
• Sit the other layer on top. Spoon another 1/3 of icing on the top and spread the rest to the sides of the cake.
• Lastly, make the caramelised nuts by heating water and sugar in a shallow pan in low heat until the sugar has melted and the mixture is bubbling.
• Add the nuts and turn off the heat. Make sure each nut is coated with the sugar mixture.
• Turn on the heat to medium and stir the coated nuts until you see the nuts turn golden brown and you hear slight noises from the nuts.
• Turn off the heat immediately and stir in butter. Take out the nuts and scatter and separate the nuts on a crumpled piece of foil. Let them cool.
• Top the cake with the caramelised nuts.