Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer cake with chocolate sour cream frosting and cookie dough filling

Chocolate peanut butter layer cake with Oreo edible cookie dough layers.

The Destroyer had his 17th birthday a few weeks back and he let me choose the birthday cake flavour. 

I asked Bubble what type of cake I should make and she said "I think he likes peanut butter and chocolate", and tbh I'm not sure if that is true or if I have just been making peanut, chocolate, Oreo flavoured cakes for him for so many years that we all think that it's true.

This beautiful cake is 4 cake layers with alternating dark black cocoa and peanut butter cake, layers of edible cookie dough with crushed Oreo, an Italian Meringue buttercream layer and crumb coast with homemade caramel and finished off in delectable chocolate sour cream frosting (which is my current obsession).

The cut slices are visually super attractive with the alternating layers of cake and filling.

Alternating cake layers are as visually attractive as they are delicious

In a controversial move for a tall cake I used Chocolate sour cream frosting which I am a bit obsessed with at the moment. Although it is insanely delicious it is quite soft and not ideal for fancy smooth cake finishes so I just swirled it about and added some strawberries, raspberries and just before serving added some Oreo's on top.

All the good things in one cake

There are a lot of components to this cake so I made the chocolate cake a few weeks earlier and froze it wrapped in cling wrap stored in an airtight container and then defrosted it the night before I assembled the cake. I made the Peanut Butter cake in the morning and whipped up the edible cookie dough frosting and Italian Meringue Buttercream whilst the cake was cooling. I made the sour cream frosting after the cake was stacked and covered the whole cake straight away and popped into the fridge.

Happy Baking 

XX

Linda M

Honestly how lovely do these cake slices look waiting to be served 💕

Peanut Butter Cake makes 1x 6" cake, recipe can be doubled

125g (4 3/8oz) plain (all purpose) flour
1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

90g milk

28 g (1oz) butter
50b (1 3/4oz) smooth peanut butter
2 eggs (room temperature)

Grease and line 1 X 6" round baking tin oven to 160C (325F).

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt, I did not sift but if your flour needs a sift you should probably do that so your cake batter is not lumpy at the end.

Heat the milk and butter together until the butter is melted and whisk in the peanut butter. I popped my milk and butter into a microwave safe bowl and heat in microwave on high for 1 minute.

Pop the eggs into a large bowl and whisk until pale and creamy, approximately 3 minutes with an electric hand mixer. See the picture below for progression of consistency. After 1 minute the eggs will appear light, but you want to keep on going for the full 3 minutes. It is possible to mix with a hand whisk but it will take a little longer.

Add the remaining ingredients alternately starting and ending with the flour as follows:

1/3 of the flour, then mix;

1/2 of the wet peanut/butter, then mix;

another 1/3 of the flour, then mix;

remaining half peanut/butter, then mix;

remaining flour mix until combined and then keep mixing for another 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Pout into the prepared baking tin and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour until golden brown and a skewer comes out of the cake clean. 

Remove from oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool prior to cutting and decorating.

To Assemble

6" Peanut Butter Cake (recipe above)

6" Midnight Sky Black Cocoa Cake 1/2 recipe (CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE)

Edible chocolate chip cookie dough substitute Crushed Oreo for chocolate chips (CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE)

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting (recipe below)

Italian Meringue Butter cream (CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE)

Strawberries, raspberries and Oreos for decorating (optional)

6" cake board

Slice the chocolate cake and peanut butter cake in half horizontally. You will end up with 4 cakes.

Take half the edible cookie dough and press it onto the top of one chocolate layer and do the same with the remaining half of the cookie dough and other chocolate cake. I find it easiest to press the cookie dough into a disk between the flat palms of my hand and pop it on top of the cake. 

Secure one layer of the chocolate cake to the cake board with a little dollop of buttercream. I like to use the flat bottom of the cake to get a secure flat first layer. 

Top with a layer of peanut butter cake, spread with a thin layer of  buttercream underneath to attach to the cookie dough layer. Then top with a layer of the Italian Meringue buttercream. I used about 2/3 of a cup. I added a layer of homemade caramel (Optional CLICK HERE for caramel recipe) pop the cake into the fridge to set before proceeding.

You will need to ensure each cake layer is even as you build up.

Top with a third layer of cake using the second cookie dough topped chocolate cake and pop into fridge again to set.

Top with final layer of peanut butter cake once again using a thin spread of buttercream on the bottom to attach it to the cookie dough filling. I normally like to make sure this cake is the other 'bottom' cake and turn it upside down so the bottom is the top of the cake for a perfect flat finish (but I did not do that here-not sure why).

Give the cake a thin layer of Italian meringue all over as a crumb coat.

Pop into fridge and chill. Once the cake is firm remove from fridge and cover with chocolate sour cream frosting. 

Cover the edges and top with all of the frosting. I simply used a palette knife to cover the cake but use whatever process you are used to. I swirled the frosting around to give an old fashioned retro look.

Chocolate sour cream frosted cake.
Also how amazing are the Australian Native flowers from my garden in the white jug !

Top with strawberries and raspberries if desired and store in fridge. If you want to add Oreo's do so just before serving.

Sour cream Chocolate Frosting Recipe - this frosting is super delicious and is perfect for brownies. This recipe is enough to frost this tall 4 layer 6" cake on the outside, or frost a dozen cupcakes or a batch of brownies.

115g (3 7/8oz) unsalted butter at room temperature
130g (45/8oz) icing sugar
40g (1 3/8oz) cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
120g (3 7/8oz) sour cream 

Mix together butter and icing sugar until combined. 

Add cocoa and vanilla and combine well. 

Add in half sour cream and salt and mix until just combined, add remaining sour cream and mix until just combined and creamy, do not overmix.

Perfect Birthday cake for boys 17th birthday party or really just any reason

💕

Original photos and recipe from the Bubble and Sweet blog ©Linda McCubbin 2025. I love when people share my blog ideas and give credit. Please feel free to link back to my blog for non commercial purposes or contact me. Affiliate links and adds may earn me money, however all ideas and opinions are my own.

Linda Mccubbin is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US in 2011 (under my previous name Linda Vandermeer).

Salted Caramel Sauce with honey and vanilla

Homemade caramel is so easy to make with just a few ingredients and it genuinely tastes so much better than store bought. I know it seems tricky but if you follow the simple steps I have shown in the pictures below it's not really that hard.

The key is to have all your ingredients ready, watch the syrup colour closely and take it off the stove as soon as it reaches the perfect golden colour. The photo's below show the progression from clear to gold over about 6 minutes. But once it reaches that golden stage you don't have a lot of time. 

Make sure you have a safe spot to pop your hot saucepan onto to whisk in the cream, and also that the cream and butter are already measured and your whisk is already out and ready to go.

Oh and defiantly make sure you warm your cream. If your cream is prewarmed before you pour it in, it will not seize or become a big clumpy mess when you add it to the super hot syrup. A few seconds in the microwave to get the cream lukewarm will make a big difference to your caramel making experience.

This batch in the photo's has a touch of honey, salt and vanilla to add flavour, but really you can leave all those ingredients out. 

Edible cookie dough recipe CLICK HERE

I drizzled this caramel onto some chocolate chip cookie cups filled with scoops of cookie dough frosting (CLICK HERE for cookie dough recipe) and it was incredibly decadent. Then I followed up with brownie cups filled with the same frosting and they were even more delicious.

Once you learn how to make caramel sauce you'll be reluctant to ever buy it again it's so easy and seriously tastes so much better.

Happy Baking 

XX

Linda M

Caramel Sauce for drizzling or dipping - yield just over 1 cup. Best storage is airtight sterile glass container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. Can be stored in fridge or frozen. I have used a little honey in this sauce, if you prefer you can use liquid glucose or light corn syrup. 

200g (7 1/8 oz) white granulated sugar
45 g (1 5/8oz) water
1 tsp honey
40 g (1 3/8oz) butter (heated in microwave for 20 seconds)
120 g (4 1/4oz) cream (heated in microwave for 30 seconds)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Put water, honey and sugar into a saucepan and stir very gently.

Cook on medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. DO NOT STIR!

Increase heat until the mixture boils and becomes a clear syrup and then starts to turn golden.

If necessary swirl the pan very gently and only a little to cook evenly, do not stir. 

Cook until the colour reaches the desired strength of caramel, around 6-8 minutes. The one in the pictures was simmered for approximately 6 minutes.

Remove from heat, add the cream whisk , then add the butter and whisk until well combined 

Add the vanilla and salt and whisk again. Pour into a clean jar.

This caramel is drizzle consistency, if you want it thicker return to heat (at medium low) after adding cream and butter and cook for a little bit longer until it thickens. The consistency in these pictures is for drizzling or dipping and it will not harden. 

I stored my caramel in a clean glass jar at room temperature and it lasted for 2 weeks. Ensure your glass is very clean and the utensils you put into it are also clean. You can also store in fridge or if you want freeze smaller portions in ziplock bags and defrost in fridge as needed.

I used a disposable zip lock bag to pipe the sauce onto the cookies

💕

Linda McCubbin is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US in 2011 (under my previous name Linda Vandermeer).

Original photos and recipe from the Bubble and Sweet blog ©Linda McCubbin 2025. I love when people share my blog ideas and give credit. Please feel free to link back to my blog for non commercial purposes or contact me. Affiliate links and adds may earn me money, however all ideas and opinions are my own.

Sweet's 19th Birthday Cake inspired by Monet water lilies and Ducks

Sweet had her 19th birthday a few weeks back and I when I asked her what kind of cake she wanted she chose blueberry and lemon. So I came up with a vanilla blueberry cake with layers of homemade lemon curd covered in a vanilla Italian meringue.

To decorate, I decided to channel my love for Sweet and I came up with a mildly chaotic, colourful, beautifully whimsical cake.

Inspired by the feelings of Monet's water lilies and with cute meringue ducks swimming across the top it was a fun quirky cake.

To be honest I'm more team chocolate but the lemon curd layers are so pretty

To make the the lemon layers in the cake I used the microwave lemon curd recipe from my YouTube video CLICK HERE FOR LEMON CURD RECIPE link. 

I made 3 batches of my lemon curd and mixed in 1/2 a leaf of gelatine per batch (so 1 1/2 for all 3 batches) and set each batch into a 4" circle mould. It was a lot of lemon curd as a ratio to cake and I would probably use less if I did it again, although the layers did look super pretty. Disclaimer I am more of a chocolate fan so I do find lemon desserts a little overwhelming and I was eating it after a piece of chocolate cake.

Anyway I still had not decided how I was going to decorate the cake while I was making it. I was quite keen to use meringue ducks due to Sweet's fondness of both meringue and ducks however the cake design apart from lemon, blueberry and meringue ducks was not yet set.

The whole cake was really just background for the ducks

Whilst I was filling and stacking the cake I decided it already had a lot of sweet layers going on and thought that a semi naked cake with not a lot of frosting would be best. Which swayed my design to this muted watercolour theme.

I barely used any buttercream in the decorating layer, perhaps less that 3/4 of a cup of buttercream on the whole four layer 6" cake which is quite scant. 

To decorate I popped a few spoonfuls of my Italian Meringue Buttercream into seperate bowls and added a teensy touch of food colour and used a palate knife to pat on the coloured buttercream. Once I started I hated the colours, scrapped it off and realised it needed to be a bit more muted instead.

To achieve more muted colours, mix in a little of the other colours to 'muddy' them and take the clean edge of them. For example mix a little of the green or blue and yellow into the pink, a bit of the pink into the blue and green, and some green and pink into the yellow by just adding little touches of the already mixed buttercream into the other buttercreams (probably don't add extra drops of food colour for these small amounts of frosting it will be too much).

relaxed laid back decorating is my favourite kind

Once I was happier with the colours I resumed patting on the buttercream with the offset palate knife. By pressing down and pulling up you get the rough looking finish on the top that I have achieved. I finished with a bit of food grade edible gold leaf applied randomly for a touch of luxury.

Once the cake was ready to serve I let Sweet choose the placement of the ducks and waterlily flowers. 

We served this cake with macarons and a seperate chocolate cake which was a deep black cocoa tall layer cake. You can find the instructions and recipe for the chocolate cake by clicking here BLACK VELVET CAKE RECIPE LINK.

Black velvet chocolate cake (RECIPE HERE) and lemon layer cake 19th birthday cakes

Although the vanilla blueberry cake was yummy I'm not ready to share it yet as I felt it didn't hold up well enough as a decorated layer cake. It still has a small amount of tweaking. Or perhaps I might look at turning it into more of a snack cake as the flavour is delicious. 

stay tuned xx

Happy Baking

Linda M

💕

I hand piped these adorable little meringue ducks. The babies were the cutest thing.

Linda McCubbin is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US in 2011 (under my previous name Linda Vandermeer).

Original photos and recipe from the Bubble and Sweet blog ©Linda McCubbin 2025. I love when people share my blog ideas and give credit. Please feel free to link back to my blog for non commercial purposes or contact me. Affiliate links and adds may earn me money, however all ideas and opinions are my own.