Peanut Butter Cake
on Jan 16, 2019, Updated Nov 01, 2020
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My homemade Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting is an old school recipe that will quickly become a family favorite. You will find the moist cake loaded with peanut butter flavor. Then we top it with the best peanut butter frosting.
Peanut Butter Cake
Peanut butter fans are going to go crazy for this Peanut Butter cake. I am a big fan of everything peanut butter. If you follow along on my blog, you probably have already figured that out. I love my 3 ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies. My No Bake Reese’s Peanut Butter Cheesecake is an over the top peanut butter lovers dream. So peanut butter recipes are my most favorite desserts and I share them often.
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Each year for my birthday, my grandmother would make us each a homemade cake to celebrate our day. My grandmother quickly realized that she never really had to ask me which cake was going to be my choice. Every year, I always requested her homemade peanut butter cake with peanut butter frosting. It really was her best homemade cake. It is perfect for feeding a crowd. We sometimes cut our cakes into smaller finger sized pieces when we are feeding more than just immediate family. You can easily get quite a few smaller pieces from a traditional sized cake pan. I know some make an old fashioned peanut butter sheet cake when serving a crowd. Sheet pan cakes are great but there is something about a thick moist cake topped with a layer of thicker frosting.
This recipe is an old fashioned cake recipe filled with so much flavor. She has been making this same recipe for years. I thought the recipe was very tedious so I never tried to make it myself. I can’t believe I have waited this long to make her homemade peanut butter cake. I have now made this recipe a few times and each and every time, my family has gobbled it up. They now have deemed it their favorite cake.It was not difficult to make and took very little time. Sure a peanut butter cake mix would be a blessing for a quick dessert but homemade desserts are always the best. The question always lingers in my mind as to why manufacturers have yet to make a good peanut butter cake mix. Maybe someday they will excite all of us peanut butter fans with such a product.
How do you make Peanut Butter Cake?
All that is needed to make this recipe is some creamy peanut butter and some basic ingredients you most likely have on hand. Grab some of the store brand peanut butter, it will work best. It is always creamy and has the most oil content. So it is perfect for this cake. Peter Pan or Skippy will work fine too.
Ingredients to Make Peanut Butter Cake with Homemade Peanut Butter Frosting
CAKE
2 cup Flour
2 cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup Milk
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
1 cup Water
1/2 cup Butter
3/4 cup Peanut Butter
FROSTING
1/2 cup softened Butter
1 cup Peanut Butter
3 tbsp Milk
2 cup Powdered Sugar
How to make Homemade Peanut Butter Cake and Peanut Butter Frosting
Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a 9×13 baking dish with butter. Dust with flour to prevent sticking.
Whisk together flour, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl.
Add milk, eggs, and vanilla to bowl.
Beat mixture at low speed until blended.
Add water, butter, and peanut butter to a saucepan.
Heat over medium heat stirring frequently until blended (about 5 minutes).
Add peanut butter mixture into flour mixture.
Stir until batter is well mixed and pour into prepared dish.
Bake about 35-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool.
Cream together the butter and peanut butter.
Slowly add in the sugar, if it gets too thick then add a little milk to thin.
Continue until all of the sugar is in and the frosting is blended to the right consistency.
Spread frosting over cooled cake.
Tips for Making Peanut Cake
I always heavily butter my baking dish. I also add a dusting of flour. This always keeps the cake from sticking.
Bake for long enough for your center to be baked thoroughly. Ovens and baking time can vary from oven to oven. Just use the toothpick trick. If the toothpick comes out clean, your cake is done.
Be sure to use softened butter for your peanut butter frosting. It will blend much better with the peanut butter and make the texture of your frosting creamier. Add a couple more drops of milk if you would like your frosting thinner.
Toss your cake in the refrigerator, it tastes amazing chilled too.
If storing your cake at room temperature, cover it to keep fresh.
Enjoy with a large glass of milk. Milk with this cake is amazing.
Peanut Butter Cake
Ingredients
CAKE
- 2 cup Flour
- 2 cup Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 cup Milk
- 2 Eggs
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1 cup Water
- 1/2 cup Butter
- 3/4 cup Peanut Butter
FROSTING
- 1/2 cup softened Butter
- 1 cup Peanut Butter
- 3 tbsp Milk
- 2 cup Powdered Sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Grease a 9x13 baking dish with butter. Dust with flour to prevent sticking.
- Whisk together flour, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl.
- Add milk, eggs, and vanilla to bowl.
- Beat mixture at low speed until blended.
- Add water butter and peanut butter to a saucepan.
- Heat over medium heat stirring frequently until blended (about 5 minutes).
- Add peanut butter mixture into flour mixture.
- Stir until batter is well mixed and pour into prepared dish.
- Bake about 35-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Allow to cool.
- Cream together the butter and peanut butter.
- Slowly add in the sugar, if it gets too thick then add a little milk to thin.
- Continue until all of the sugar is in and the frosting is blended to the right consistency.
- Spread frosting over cooled cake.
This cake is, AMAZING, DELICIOUS, MOIST,FLAVORFUL, SCRUMPTIOUS, I could go on and on, do not change anything in the recipe, thanks for sharing, Bless your Grandmother
I think your recipe needs a teaspoon of baking powder, mine rose much better when I added a teaspoon.
Gail
Tried this recipe for something different to bake. Super easy and my family loved it!
I only used the cake recipe, not the frosting. I put it in 3 6-inch rounds, baked for about 35 min. It came out delicious. I love PB cookies and this cake tastes just like one but in soft cakey form. I ended up making a PB&J cake with it, homemade strawberry jelly in between the cake layers and frosted with vanilla buttercream. So good! Thank you for this recipe. It’s totally a keeper.
Can you make this into two round cakes to make a layer cake with frosting in between? Would the bake times vary?
New baker here. Is the flour plain, do you use baking soda, not baking powder? Sounds wonderful, will try this.
Best cake I’ve ever made! It came out perfect and it’s addictive too. Thank you for this fantastic recipe.
I had a craving for peanut butter and found this recipe. My family didn’t want to try it. However, they took one bite and the whole thing disappeared. It was fantastic! I made it gluten free too. Super easy recipe to convert. Thank you for an amazing recipe.
Can you tell me how you converted it? What flour brand did you use? Thank you
Oh, Sarah,
Have NO fear whatsoever. The very same thought occurred to me, but let me tell you your apprehensions are groundless. This cake is soooooooooooooooo flavorful you may be sorry – because it is honestly wonderful. A whole room full of women were swooning over this cake, and some are really picky. Go ahead and do it like she wrote it – you will not regret it.
Never have I ever had more people rave about a cake than with this one. I took it to a potluck with a bunch of nurses, many of them who are faithfully “healthy” eaters. All that went out the window when this baby was cut and “sampled”; and one lady even told me that if this cake were made every month at our potlucks, she’d be happy, happy, happy. It is a winner in every way. Nothing too extraordinarily hard; the ingredients are all there all the time; and it’s just absolutely dee-lish-us! Than you so much for sharing.