Monday, June 20, 2011

Peanut Butter Cakelets

This past weekend I went on another dessert excursion, except this time something a little closer to home.  My Uncle's birthday is coming up in the next week or so and my Dad wanted me to make him his favorite cake, peanut butter.  He told me to find a recipe with a lot of layers (aka the likes of Dean's Cakes some of the best cakes in the south in my opinion).

Well at first I avoided it, actually I just plum forgot about it.  Then I went to looking up recipes but every single one no where close to what I remember from days of old.  It gave me chocolate peanut butter cakes and just about every other kind except for what I wanted.  So I finally find one but accidentally leave the recipe at home when we go to my grandparents for Fathers Day.  Then I figured it was too late, because I was leaving the next day and probably wouldn't be back in town until after his birthday.

Late the night before I leave I was watching The Next Food Network Star and it was their dessert episode.  Now it seems to me that on every single cooking competition no one is able to make desserts, they always whine and complain and mess everything up.  Sure enough there were probably more misses than hits on this episode.  I get a little mad and decide that I am just going to go make something to prove to them that it wasnt that hard.

 So I go into the kitchen (and listen here for this tip) and started looking through the recipe books my grandma has.  I looked for the oldest, most worn looking books and also for some old church recipe books.  If a book is worn that means its been used alot and stuff is bound to good in there because why would they use it? Looking for the old church books is a good tip as well, especially if you are in the south.  Them church ladies knew how to cook!  People don't really cook like they used to so it is important to get an older book and its bound to have better recipes.

Sure enough I find 3 Peanut Butter cake recipes in the first book I look at.  My grandma tells me that one of them was from my one of my aunts mother and that she was a really good cook so the recipe was sure to be good.  I get to working right then and there.

Watching NFNS I got the idea about layered cupcakes and how I had not ever seen it done and wondered if it was possible.  I get to brainstorming as to how I could make thin layers and then cut them into cupcake size.  I have a sheet pan that would work but then my grandma pulls out this diamond of an idea.  Cast iron skillets, these shallow pans (little did I know were exactly the pans used to make the 7-layer cakes from my childhood) were perfect for making consistent layers of the same size and thickness.

I bake them and cut them into circles with a biscuit cutter  then get to making the peanut butter icing.  I layer 4 layers tall with icing in between the layers and then ice it all around.  Some of the them turned out to be a little bit difficult when the icing would start to harden as they cooled off, but after heating it back up it was ready to go again.

Overall I was extremely satisfied with how it turned out, the cake was delicious and some of the best I have had, and who knows maybe there will be more mini-layered cakes in my future :)


Also if anyone has any ideas for a better name for it let me know, cakelet describes it well but not sure if it is what it should be.