Slow Cooker Peanut Butter Cup Cake

My curiosity was piqued by this recipe.  Cake in the crock pot?  Really?  I have to see how this works.  We all love chocolate with peanut butter and the picture of this cake on A Year of Slow Cooking looks ooey, gooey and yummy!  I already have all the ingredients on hand.  I'm definitely giving this recipe a try this week.....

Ingredients (recipe by Stephanie O'Dea)

1 cup all-purpose flour (Stephanie used Pamela's Baking Mix)

1 cup sugar (divided. this is important, don't just start dumping, read on!)

1 teaspoon baking powder (even though Pamela's has baking powder in it, she used this amount)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (unless you're a rebel. then use chunky)

1/2 cup milk (I used fat free cow's. to keep it light. HA!)

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup boiling water

The Directions

Use a 4-quart slow cooker coated well with cooking spray. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder and salt.

In the microwave, melt peanut butter for about 30 seconds, and then add to the mix along with milk, oil, and vanilla. Stir really well to combine. Spread this mixture into the bottom of your slow cooker.

In a separate bowl, mix together cocoa powder, the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1 cup boiling water (be careful!) Pour this evenly over the peanut butter batter in your cooker.

Cover and cook on high for 2-4 hours, or until the top has set and an inserted toothpick (into the cake---underneath the cake is molten chocolate) comes out clean. Let the cake sit uncovered in an unplugged crock pot for about 20 minutes, then serve warm in dessert bowls.

You can see that we are serious peanut butter eaters.  We buy 6 pound cans of it!  I used good ol' all-purpose flour.  If you choose to use Pamela's Baking Mix, this recipe is gluten-free.  I like that the ingredients are all things I keep in my cupboard.  I could make this anytime without making a special trip to the grocery store.

If you use a 4 qt. slow cooker follow the directions and just spread the mixture inside.  I used a larger 6 qt. slow cooker.  So, I followed the suggestion from the blog to put a casserole dish at the bottom and load the ingredients inside the dish.  Here's the peanut butter mixture, first.

Then, I poured the chocolate on top.  The hardest part of this recipe is waiting 2-4 hours. 

Don't worry, it's not burnt on top.  That's just some of the chocolate sauce that didn't sink to the bottom of the pan and cooked on top of the cake.  It cooked for about 3 hours and I let it set for 20 minutes before I served it.

The Results...
 Ooey, gooey, chocolatey, peanut butter goodness!  It was nice and moist and not overly sweet.  I thought it had a nice balanced flavor of peanut butter and chocolate.  It's neat how the chocolate sinks to the bottom.  We enjoyed this for dessert, but wished we had some ice cream to go with it.  Cold ice cream would be delicious with this warm dessert.  If you have a peanut butter and chocolate craving this cake can satisfy it.

BTW, If you like using a slow cooker, check out A Year of Slow Cooking.  There are lots of slow cooker recipes that look interesting.  It will be summertime soon and I love slow cookers in the summertime, no need to turn on the oven.