Peanut Butter Polka Dot Cake

We have three birthdays in three weeks in our house.  None of us are going to be able to get into our shorts when the warm weather strikes!  This weekend it was Papa’s birthday (my dad and grandpa to the kiddos), so peanut butter cake it was.  He is a bit of a peanut butter freak!

I baked the cake after altering my white cake to peanut butter, adding chocolate chips for the polka dots (“You got  chocolate in my peanut butter!”)  Then I left for work entrusting the all important frosting making and decoration to my 11-year-old son.  He did a great job!  The cake looked great and tasted delicious.  This is his first all by himself decorating, and he did superb.  Hmmm….I usually have to make my own birthday cake.  I think I will have him do it for me this year.

My littlest daughter’s birthday is next weekend.  Of course, so is Easter.   My daughter’s request for cake has been a princess-Blue’s Clues-pink-purple-monkey-rainbow-cowgirl-bear cake with grass on it.  Oh, really is THAT all…  Of course, my darling hubby has also suggested a Uniqua cake (from the Backyardigans.)   “Yetti, yetti, yetti!”  This is a girl who does not like frosting, except a bit of chocolate, and will most likely scrape whatever I decorate the cake with right onto the edge of her plate.  But it is her birthday, and she is my sweet baboo, so tune in next weekend to see how it all comes together.  I am sure she will have many more ideas over the next few days!

Peanut Butter Cake

 

1 cup rice flour (be sure it is ground fine)

2/3 cups potato starch

1/3 cup tapioca

2 tsp xanthan
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening (organic palm preferred)

1/2 cup peanut creamy butter (natural/no sugar added

preferred)
1 ½ cups brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk substitute

1 cup GFCF chocolate chips (optional)

 

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease and flour pans (9×13; 2 – 9” round; 13×17” jelly roll; or 24 cupcakes).

 

Combine flour, xanthan, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

 

Cream shortening, peanut butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.  If your peanut butter is less oily, you may need to add 1 T oil for it to cream and get fluffy.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.

 

Whisk dry ingredients in another bowl.

 

Add 1/3 of the  dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.  Add 1/3 of the milk substitute, mixing until just combined.  Repeat this step 2 more times ending with milk substitute.  Scrape sides of mixing bowl as needed.  Pour batter into prepared baking pans.

 

Bake until cake tests done in middle with toothpick or cake springs back when touched; about 35 minutes for 9” round pans and 18 minutes for cupcakes.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Frosts one 2-3 layer cake

1/2 cup GFCF margarine or organic shortening
1 cup creamy peanut butter (natural, no sugar added)
3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup almond milk or other milk substitute, divided

 

In a large bowl, beat margarine or shortening and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in 2 cups of the of the confectioner’s sugar. Mix in 1/4 cup of the milk substitute. Beat in the remaining confectioners’ sugar. If necessary, add a little more milk substitute until the frosting reaches a good spreading consistency. Makes enough to frost one 2 layer 9 inch cake or one 9×13 inch cake.

"Look at my cake! It's as nutty as I am!"