Cinammon Cake With Peanut Butter Buttercream

I haven't updated in a while - blogger changed their interface and writing new posts with pictures has become a real drag. I will do better!

Starting with this cake of dreams. I don't know about everyone else, but sometimes I just get a massive craving for cake. It's not that often, and when it happens, I usually default to my all-time favourite - mocha walnut cake (it seriously is my favourite, first posted all the way back in 2013 and rarely do I make a better cake).

But I saw an instagram post for peanut butter buttercream and I just had to try it. I really didn't want the hassle of a three tier, frosted, epic cake situation so I made a really simple sheet cake and bunged a load of frosting on top.

And it was INSANELY delicious.

I make a really nice peanut butter cookie that is rolled in cinnamon sugar - so I thought a light yellow sponge with a hint of cinnamon running through it would be a really nice but unusual pairing. It worked beautifully - but I think the chocolate sponge from my Oreo cake would also be amazing.

makes enough for a rectangular sheet cake (my tin is approx 25x17cm) and I got 4 spare cupcakes

Ingredients for the cake

• 325g plain flour
• 25g cornflour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 230g butter, softened
• 150g granulated sugar
• 150g packed brown sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 240ml buttermilk (or regular milk with 1 tbsp lemon juice)
• 80ml sour cream
• 3 large eggs

Ingredients for the buttercream

• 230g butter, room temp
• 80g peanut butter, room temp
• 440g icing sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp milk or double cream
• pinch salt
• Sprinkles, to finish

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.

Begin with the cake - mix the flour, cornflour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

In a smaller bowl, mix the milk, sour cream and eggs.

In another, larger bowl, beat together the butter, sugars and vanilla until lighter and slightly fluffy.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix well, and then add 1/3 of the liquid mixture and mix well. Continue to alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition.

Bake for 35 minutes until golden and cooked through (I always check mine with a knife).

While the cake is cooking or cooling, make the buttercream.

Whip the butter for a few minutes, then add the icing sugar, cocoa powder, milk and beat again. Finally, add in the peanut butter and salt and beat until combined. You can always add a little more icing sugar if its too runny, or more milk if its too stiff.

When the cake is cooled, pipe or spoon your icing on top, however you do it, and throw on some sprinkles if you're into that.

Slice and eat! Delicious!

Everything Cookies

Okay, I added a bit of everything for these bad boys. And they’re PERFECT.

Take a cookie. Add peanut butter. Sprinkle over some coconut. M&Ms? Sure, they can join the party. Chocolate chips go without saying.

YES. GET IN MY MOUTH.

Thick Peanut Butter Cookies

Giant cookie and its tiny babies

HOLY CRAP.
So, I had totally given up on being able to make the kind of cookies that are tall, thick, stacked, basically CHUNKY. My go-to cookies are amazing and chewy, but they're decidedly flat.

And I was experimenting with cookie size (basically, I wanted to make a giant one) and came across this recipe and OMFG it's amazing.

Chunky - check.
Crisp outside - check.
Smooth inside - check
Delicious - CHECK CHECK CHECK.

I had a little dance after I ate my first one. That's how delicious these are.

Feel free to experiment with the size. Just under half of this recipe made a HUGE 15cm diameter cookie, and with the other just-over-half I got 8 decent cookies.

STACKED full of deliciousness

Peanut Butter Cookies

CONFESSION TIME. I forgot 2 fundamental aspects of this recipe because I was too busy watching Love Island. The chocolate chips and the rolling in sugar part before you bake them.

Remembered the sugar for these ones...

It is what it is.

I remembered near the end so I rolled a few in sugar, and I scattered sugar over the hot-from-the-oven ones.

Really, it’s just a personal preference because they’re great both with and without. They have that really satisfying texture with the crinkly top and I have found my new favourite cookie recipe! Next time I’ll be less terrible and try them with chocolate chips too, but the important thing is the base cookie recipe which is PERFECT.

Makes about 16-18 cookies

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake

This is pretty much a big Reece’s cup you can serve up as a dessert. The sour quality of the cream cheese cuts nicely through the richness of the chocolate and peanut butter, and I am LOVING the nutty base. I think the base would be lovely with even a normal vanilla cheesecake topping.

It’s a little bit fiddly to cover the filing with the topping without cracking the surface, but even if it goes slightly wrong, it will still marble a bit and taste delicious!

"Raw" Coconutty "Snickers" Traybakes

Oh dear me. I don’t really know how I found myself down this rabbit hole of blitzing dates in a food processor on the instruction of a recipe for which “blended dates” is a synonym for “caramel”.

Anyway. I had a brief foray into the world of clean treats when I made sweet potato brownies. And then I forgot all about it. And then I started this “healthier” eating kick, and of course my first step was to bookmark a million recipes.

The whole raw food concept is interesting to me. It’s an odd phenomenon, people who can’t or choose not to eat processed, pre-packed food like chocolate bars, but who try to recreate the taste in a more wholesome way. Of course, this still has sugar and calories and is still very much a “treat,” but doesn’t have lots of additives and un-natural-ness.

I’m not going to lie. I’m sceptical about it. Sometimes I think the people who make these things haven’t had a bar of proper chocolate in so long that they kind of forget what it tastes like. Make no mistake, a snickers bar is an incredible and delicious thing (and don’t even get me started on the hazelnut version!). And this version, while definitely not a snickers, has its own sweet, nutty, chewey, crunchy appeal.  I think these raw treats are let down by comparisons, and we should just let them be their own weird little nutty-fruity thing.

One thing that I’ve noticed with all the raw recipes is that you won’t really get away without a food processor. I couldn’t get through 48 hours without mine, but if you don’t have one, you really should consider it. I even have two – a regular sized one and a little tiny one, for chopping tiny things!

The Best Peanut Butter Cookies EVER

Dear readers, (all 2 of you. Yes, hi, mum) I am going to give you a big treat today. I have been a little negligent lately (life!) but I am back to my regular scheduled programming and I want to reward the unending loyalty..

The best peanut butter cookie recipe EVER EVER.

There are a few things I love to do when I bake. I love using nuts. I love baking things that are already all portioned off and easy to eat with your hands. And I absolutely, positively love rolling things in cinnamon sugar. All these things make me happy. And you get ALL of that goodness in one handy, scummy recipe!

In all the sugary goodess

It has peanut butter, it has cinnamon, it has a sugary outer coating and the cookies are the best tasting thing I’ve had all year. I can’t really explain much more than that, just make them and you’ll see.

The perfect cookie, just look at it

Banana Peanut Butter Muffins

I'm post-nightshift and I feel like a zombie. I would be feeling worse if not for these little lifesavers, gratefully gorged on at 4am.

We’ve all been there. It’s the start of the week, and you have a bowl of rapidly browning, sad looking bananas left over from last week's shop in your fruit bowl. Sure, you could just eat them, but that feels like punishment. Instead, I'm going to give those bananas a fitting send off,

So, I decided to combine some of my favourite flavours and make some lovely muffins! These are really delicious, filling and flavourful. They make a very treat-ful breakfast. And are great for elevenses. And lunch-dessert. And midnight snack.

Peanut butter and banana really go well together and the hint of cinnamon just ties the whole thing together. The crumble topping really makes these muffins into something very, and you gotta make them to see for yourself.

Chicken Satay Noodle Soup

More toppings than soup - my kind of bowl!

Yum yum yum. Hello Monday night dinner!

One of my absolute favourite things to get from a Chinese takeaway is chicken satay. There is something about spicy, thick, silky nutty sauce smothered over some chicken that just gets me every time. Here, the noodles really shine, they cook in with the rest and help the sauce thicken up and become silky smooth. The creamed coconut helps with the sauce texture as well, without making it taste overwhelmingly of coconut.

This is one of these great midweek dinners which I love. Flavourful, quick, and all made in one pot = minimal washing up! I have to admit, I am not the biggest of noodle fans, but you could easily cook some rice in a separate pot and put that in a bowl first and pour some noodle-less soup on top. That would also be excellent. Good plan, rice fans,

You should make this for dinner next week, your family will love you for it!

Peanutty "African" Stew

A perfect pot of food.

Okay, the reason I’ve put African in quotes in the title is that I mentioned this recipe to a friend from north Africa and she was, to put it politely, extremely sceptical about the African origins of this recipe.

However, I have never let a cultural misunderstanding get in the way of a good meal. And this is pure deliciousness, a big bowl of warming, spicy, nutty and sweet comfort. On these freezing not-quite-spring nights it is the ideal meal for happiness.

I could eat this every damn day. I hate stew, but this has almost a broth-like, curry quality which I just adore. So, who cares where it is from, just eat!

Peanut Butter Brownies

All the stores are full of "healthy" food for New Years and I'm just like.. BROWNIES.

Everybody loves brownies. And, by transit of property, everybody loves the person who brings brownies.

I particularly love these because these really are "kitchen cupboard" brownies. We've all got a jar of peanut butter and some peanuts lurking in the back of the cupboard.

I’ve really been experimenting with all sorts of brownie types, because it is a basic recipe that lends itself so well to different flavours. We've had the classic, the orange, the mint, so far. 

These came about after I was googling “recipes with peanut butter” as you do, and I couldn't believe that I hadn't considered peanut butter brownies up until then. If you wanted to be really naughty, you could easily throw in peanut m&ms instead of the chocolate chips and peanuts. Not that I've ever done that. Ahem.

Peanut Butter Hummus

Hello Nigella fans!

I’m not going to lie to you, when I first read the name of this recipe I felt it was akin to using meat from a jar, or deep-frying a Mars Bar. Maybe something other people did, but not in my kitchen.

Strike me down for my folly!

I love hummus and could live on it. Easily, live on it all day. My main issue with making my own is that I can’t seem to source tahini paste. Not to be foiled, I have made my own tahini paste before, but that didn’t turn out amazingly and left a grainy texture to the hummus.

So, I turn to alternatives. If you think about it tahini paste (sesame seeds and oil) isn’t too far from peanut butter. I write that confident in the knowledge that my home economics teacher isn’t reading.

I love the texture of this; light without being frothy, and chunky without being gritty. I whipped this bad boy up 30 minutes before a picnic, and it went down a storm with the boyfriend! A fridge staple from now on, perfect for lunches served with tortilla wraps or crisps, or chopped veg (hah!).

Of course, you can buy chickpeas dried and soak them overnight, but I rarely have the foresight, and the canned stuff tastes grand to me!

Peanut Butter Traybakes

In Dubai, Friday is the start of the weekend. And what better way to kick it off than sweet nutty goodness? Warning: these are seriously sweet, and a really hard to define tasty little morsel.

I always feel like it deserves some quirky name like crunchynutchocs.

..I’m not a namer. But to give you an idea of what you're in for, these delights are all about the peanutty chocolatey chewiness. 

I have always had a soft spot for making and devouring tray bakes. There is nothing that makes me happier than pressing a mixture into a tin, slathering with chocolate, and slicing into squares. A lot of my food loves are embedded in childhood memories. Mars Bar squares were definitely the first thing that I ever made (with my mum’s help, of course!) and these are just a slightly more elaborate version. That, and the fact that they are delicious, really cement them as firm favourites in my house.

Snickers-style Ice-cream Sauce

Or: Do you ever just want to make ice-cream slightly more unhealthy? Well, you're in luck, some Saturday night decadence is on its way!

We’ve all been there – really fancy some ice-cream, but the only thing in the freezer is vanilla. BORING. So, I scramble in the cupboards and see what I can come up with. While crumbled cookies are also a very acceptable option, I prefer this gooey, chocolatey, peanut-y sauce. Bonus: it is pretty much less effort than scooping out the ice-cream.

Off centre picture. Is it bugging you as much as it bugs me?

Chicken Laksa

It's really messy. Messier than this photo gives credit for.

Got this recipe from Jamie and his 15 minute meals. Or, as I call it, “Hannah getting flustered and making a huge mess in the kitchen over 35 minutes.” Seriously, I never use as many pots/pans/chopping boards/food processors and knives as when I make stuff from this book.

I have never had nor made anything remotely like this before but the spiced, salty, thick and creamy broth is fantastic. In fact, it is so incredibly flavourful that you could easily eat this without the meat. 

Usually, I am not a fan of noodles (RICE 4EVA), but this is a definite improvement on the boil in the bag variety. And it uses my favourite veg. I think that peppers or baby corn could work instead of the green beans, but I always just work with what I have.

Chicken Satay

Full of peanut-y goodness.

I love this recipe. The first time I made it, I was convinced that it would taste like I mixed chicken with some melted peanut butter and tried to pass it off as a meal. Like a child would do.

Fortunately, it tastes amazing. 

There’s a subtle spiciness which you can increase by adding a sliced chilli pepper (deseeded if you like). It has a richness without feeling heavy or oily. My boyfriend, aka: my most honest critic, has said that this is better than the stuff you get from the actual Chinese restaurants. Win! 5 stars!