Peanut Butter Pound Cake

I love all things peanut butter.  You add chocolate in and it just gets better for me. On facebook today I saw a peanut butter dessert on my friend Cristine's blog (check it out http://cristinecooks.blogspot.com/2011/03/peanut-butter-brownie-trifle.html) and told her I wanted to make a peanut butter dessert and she sent this one over to me. (Thank you!) Upon a vote among the kids, the cake idea won. 

This cake is very dense and very tasty.  It is the typical pound cake texture but full of peanut butter flavor.  The chocolate just makes it in my opinion. I did make my glaze a bit thicker and a bit more of it which I enjoyed.
My only complaint is that the crust was very hard to cut with my fork.  I followed this recipe pretty exact because cakes can be more finicky.  But after baking it, it still didn't seem done so I let it go a little longer which may have accounted for the crust being a little too hard.  Toothpick or skewer will not come out clean on this.  I opted to leave my bundt upside down, or right side up to have more area to hold the glaze. 

Those are just my notes.  But this is a fantastic cake. My 3 year said it "tasted like peanut butter and fluff", my 5 year old liked the frosting (glaze) on it, and my 7 year old said it was "FAAABULOUS!" And my husband who normally doesn't like peanut butter sweets said it was very tasty, but rich!  So, there you have it.

PEANUT BUTTER POUND CAKE
adapted from the recipe girl
http://www.recipegirl.com/2011/03/28/chocolate-chip-peanut-butter-pound-cake-with-peanut-butter-glaze/

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup peanut butter (I used skippy natural)
• 1/2 c (1 stick) softened butter 
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 2/3 cups chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325.  Prepare tube pan or bundt pan with "baking" spray (with the flour in it).  Whisk together flour, salt and baking soda in medium bowl.  In a separate bowl, with mixer, mix the peanut butter and butter together until smooth and all combined.  Add the sugar and beat for 5 minutes (ish).  Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until well combined.
Add flour in small increments mixing just until disappears until all the flour is incorporated.  Batter will be very thick. Stir in the chocolate chips.  Spoon evenly into pan and bake @ 325 for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  After the first hour cover loosely with foil.  Remove from oven, let cool for 20 minutes before removing from pan.  Let cool completely before pouring glaze over.

PEANUT BUTTER GLAZE

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 2/3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• mini chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Whisk it all together and spoon it over, pushing it out over the sides to drizzle on down and coat the cake in its goodness!