Too Much Peanut Butter

So I really love chocolate cake, and I have been on this quest to find the perfect chocolate cake with a balance of moistness, flavor, and utter deliciousness...  So far I have found one cake/icing combo that I absolutely love.... I found the recipe online, made it, and loved it.  It had just the right taste for a chocolate cake, and the icing was wonderfully delicious.  Unfortunately i never bookmarked the page where i found the recipe (I know, dumb right!!??), so I have since been trying in vain to find this recipe again.  I was having very little luck finding the same recipe so I thought I would deviate from the path a bit, and try a chocolate and peanut butter combo.  I mean chocolate and peanut butter are a classic combo right, so what could go wrong??  Turns out a lot!  I made the cake exactly according to the recipe, even though I knew it wasn't going to be as good as the last one based on some of the ingredients, or should I say, lack thereof.  The cake was ok, but not as moist, or as chocolaty tasting or delicious as the last, but the cake was far from the problem.  On a side note, I used homemade whipped cream as a filling between the layers and that actually turned out to be a nice surprise.  It tasted pretty good and held up well (I always refrigerate my cakes so that might help as well).  Anyway, back to the problem....  which was of course the frosting.  Now call me a glutton for punishment, but for some reason I chose to follow the recipe for a frosting that i've made before and knew i didn't like from the first time around.  I guess my thinking was that perhaps i just did something wrong the first time, or it was all in my head.... yeah, not so much.  Ok, so here's the part where i post the recipe...  try at your own risk.  For those of you who really like the taste of peanut butter you may actually LOVE this recipe, but for me it was just too much peanut butter and too rich for me.  Anyway, i got the recipe for the cake at http://annies-eats.com/2008/07/23/reese%E2%80%99s-cup-chocolate-peanut-butter-cake/ which posts a lovely picture of this cake complete with miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups, my version isn't decorated that way as i didn't have any Reese’s at the time, so i just used some left-over butter cream from a previous cake and decorated with some flowers and rosettes.  The icing recipe was on the previous website, but was actually a recipe from Ina Garten from foodnetwork...  I do not recommend this recipe unless you like really rich peanut butter flavor...not for me!

Here are the recipes:

Reese’s Cup Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
Ingredients:
         For the cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature1
½ cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks1
 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled (optional)

          For decorating:
1 ½ – 2 batches peanut butter frosting
miniature Reese’s cups, halved and/or chopped

Directions:
For the cake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°.  Butter two 9×2” round cake pans, dust the insides with flour, tap out the excess and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper.  Place the pans on a baking sheet.In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy.  Add the sugar and beat for about 2 minutes, until thoroughly blended into the butter.  Add the eggs and yolks one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Beat in the vanilla.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk; add the dry ingredients in 3 additions and the buttermilk in 2 (beginning and ending with the dry ingredients).  Mix each addition only until it is blended into the batter.  Scrape down the bowl and add the melted chocolate, if using, folding it in with a spatula.  Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans.Bake for 26-30 minutes or until the cakes feel springy to the touch and start to pull away from the sides of the pans.  Transfer to wire racks to cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners.  Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on a cardboard circle covered in foil.  Spread peanut butter frosting on top of the cake layer.  (If desired, sprinkle with chopped Reese’s cups.)  Place the second cake layer on top of the frosting.Frost the top and outside of the cake with remaining peanut butter frosting.  Decorate with halved and chopped Reese’s cups as desired.