What's not to love about this Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake Cake? This stunning cake has layers of homemade chocolate cake and peanut butter cheesecake. Topped with a creamy peanut butter frosting and dark chocolate ganache, this cake is sure to satisfy that sweet tooth!
8Dove® Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate PROMISESfor garnish
Instructions
For the Cheesecake:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Using a large, shallow roasting pan, fill with about 1 inch of water and place on bottom rack of oven.
Place a circle of parchment paper in bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese with granulated sugar for 2-3 minutes until creamy. Add in peanut butter, salt, and eggs. Beat well.
Beat in sour cream and heavy cream, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed. Allow to mix on high for two minutes until thick and creamy. Pour into prepared springform pan and place in bottom 2/3 of oven (one rack above the roasting pan). Bake cheesecake for 45 minutes. Turn oven off and let cheesecake sit in oven for an additional 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely on wire rack. Once cooled, refrigerate (in pan) until ready to use. Or, remove from pan and freeze until later use (thaw in refrigerator if frozen).
For the Cake:
Spray two 9-inch cake pans with baking spray. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.
In a measuring cup, combine cooled coffee with milk*. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar for 5 minutes with an electric mixer. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Slowly add in dry ingredients and alternate with the coffee/milk mixture (about 3 additions of each).
Once all the ingredients are added, beat cake mixture for about 2-3 minutes until fluffy (scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed).
Divide cake batter into the two cake pans. Bake in oven for 25 minutes. Remove and allow to cool about 10 minutes in pan. Invert on a wire rack and cool completely.
For the Frosting:
Beat butter for about 3 minutes in an electric mixer until pale in color, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add in peanut butter, sugar, and milk. Beat an additional 3-5 minutes until frosting is fluffy and well blended.
Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of frosting for the garnish and spoon into a decorator bag with tip. Set aside.
For the Ganache:
Unwrap 15 Dove® Dark Chocolate PROMISES and place in a microwave safe glass bowl. Add the cream and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir and heat for an additional 30 seconds. Using a whisk, quickly stir this until it's smooth.
Set aside and allow to cool for about 15 minutes. You can do this while you refrigerate the frosted cake.
To Assemble:
On a cake platter, place one layer of chocolate cake. Add the cheesecake on top of that (be sure to remove parchment paper!) and top with your second layer of chocolate cake. If needed, trim the edges to make sure they are all the same size.
Spread peanut butter frosting on the sides and top of cake in a thick layer. Refrigerate cake for about 15 minutes while you prepare the ganache.
Pour cooled ganache over the center of the cake and smooth out to the edges, allow the ganache to drip down the sides of the cake.
Using your reserved frosting, pipe a few swirls to the top of the cake and add your unwrapped Dove® Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate PROMISES. You can also pipe some stars of frosting to the bottom edge of the cake. ENJOY.
Keep cake refrigerated until ready to enjoy!
Notes
The coffee in the cake does NOT give it a coffee flavor, it just boosts the chocolate flavor. If you desire, you can replace the 1/2 cup of coffee with an additional 1/2 cup of milk instead (making the total amount 1 cup of milk)
If you’re making it the same day, start early, as you want to give the cheesecake time to chill and set. If you have time…I suggest making the cheesecake the day before and refrigerating it until you’re ready to assemble the cake. You can even make it days in advance and freeze the cheesecake!
You will want to use the same size cake pans as your springform pan for the cheesecake. Otherwise, you’ll be doing some “shaving” of one of the cakes to make them equal.
I used 9-inch cake pans and a 9-inch springform pan.