Butter Cake!

Baby Butter Bundt Cake

A few years ago Charlie and I discovered the wonder that is Butter Cake after a friend suggested we try it at a well known pizza chain. I will forever love and hate him for this suggestion :)

With butter in it's name, one should be expecting a very rich cake.

However, two bites in to Charlie and were both sure we were on the verge of a diabetic heart attack.

I was sure I could feel my arteries constricting. And, I may have hallucinated Paula Deen at our table for minute.

But once I was sure immediate death wasn't going to follow, I knew I was hooked on this cake.

In the years since the first tasting, I've come back to this cake again and again trying to figure out its exact composition.

I've researched tons of copy cat recipes. And, I tried several in my own kitchen.

Finally, after devoting three days and untold amounts of butter to this cake, I found something I felt was close enough.

I think the original has some sort of cream cheese topping or filling but I was purely interested in the cake and the crust achieved on its outside.

My version ended up as a bunt cake and is very, very rich but remains fluffy.

I coated the inside of the pan with butter and sprinkled with sugar to get that nice crunch on the outside. And, I also poured a vanilla butter glaze over the bottom of the cake as it cooled and  topped it with the same glaze before serving.

The finished product must have weighted at least 8 pounds. Which is good. Because then you burn some calories moving it around as this is NOT a diet friendly cake :)

I took the finished product in to work. After all that experimentation, Charlie and I did not need to eat a third butter cake in one week since even the mistakes were too good to throw away.

Big Butter Bundt Cake

The cake was gone within 15 minutes.

Success!

The recipe requires some explaining and would take up too much space here. If you want to try it, call/text/email and I'll send it to you with some tips!

It's Peanut Butter Pretzel Time!

I met a lot of really great people when I was working as a temp at an office in Omaha.

Among those that I met, I've kept in touch with a few that helped train me.

Recently one of those former co-workers had a birthday.

taking pretzels to a whole new level

I really like this person.

She works hard and is an amazing mom.

So, I decided to make her a cake.

From the time we spent as cubicle neighbors, I learned one of her favorite snack foods are peanut butter pretzel nuggets.

And, as soon as I found that out I decided that I would one day make a dessert for her that was a play on those nuggets.

Here's what I came up with:



The cake is two layers of vanilla sponge.


There are two layers of peanut butter mousse. One  between the cakes to keep them moist and a slightly thicker one on top.








The bottom of the bottom layer of cake is coated with semi-sweet chocolate. Why? Because I think you always need a little chocolate with peanut butter.








And, the top is garnished with broken pretzel sticks.

 Is it weird to give someone a pre-cut cake?






 I cut the cake in to portions before I delivered it because the chocolate layer at the bottom requires some finesse and a very sharp knife to cut it.

Charlie and I sampled some of the trimmed pieces. He felt the chocolate overpowered the peanut butter flavor in the mousse. But, he did admit that he wanted to eat more of it.

I agree that the chocolate flavor was a tiny bit strong, maybe I should have done a chocolate glaze on top but the chocolate layer provided some additional crunch and a contrast to the sweetness of the mousse.