Peanut Butter Honey Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate-Peanut Butter Streusel is tender, moist, and buttery, thanks to the buttermilk, butter, and peanut butter. The streusel layer is chock full of peanut butter flavor and is bursting with chocolate chips. Best of all, the cake is made in one bowl in 5 minutes. No one has to know how fast and easy it is to make.
A few weeks ago I went to Big Potluck and was assigned to bring a cake to share. It was, after all, a potluck.
This was my contribution.
I was stumped about what kind of cake to make. I thought and thought about it. And thought some more. I read recipes on blogs, Pinterest, Foodgawker, and more. Cooking for an event where fellow bloggers, cookbook authors, and a Food Network TV show host may eat it was adding just a wee bit of pressure.
I opted to go with peanut butter and chocolate. Shocking, I know. Since my cookbook is about peanut butter, I thought that I may as well represent. The cake isn’t in my book, but I wish it was.
It’s a fast and easy cake to make, and only one bowl is dirtied. There’s no long creaming of ingredients, or separating eggs, or anything fussy or complicated.
The batter comes together in 5 minutes, it bakes for about 25 minutes, so it’s literally a 30 minute cake.
There’s no granulated or brown sugar in the cake layer, and instead it’s sweetened with honey. I love honey and had never made a cake exclusively sweetened with it until now.
It’s a more delicate and mellow sweetness, rendering the cake just sweet enough, and it won’t leave you with a toothache.
The other bonus to this cake is that it doesn’t need to be frosted because of the streusel. I love eating frosting, but I don’t like the act of frosting cakes or cupcakes. I prefer glazes, drizzles, or ganaches that can be poured over without much fuss. Even better is streusel.
It was a miracle I didn’t pick it all off, but wanted to.
The photo shoot was so hard because I wanted to tear into the cake so badly, but refrained. It was worth the wait when I was finally able to eat a piece of my own cake at the potluck.
Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of my own cake. I was too busy with wine.
The cake itself is soft, tender, and springy. It loosely reminds me a yellow cake mix cake, but better. Anything spiked with buttermilk, honey, and peanut butter is destined to be moist and bouncy.
It’s surprisingly lighter than you’d imagine given the list of ingredients. Buttermilk has a way of moisturizing and tenderizing anything it touches, while also keeping things lighter and fluffier.
The streusel topping with brown sugar, peanut butter, and chocolate chips is so tempting. I wanted to pluck those golden crumbs right off the cake and into my mouth.
Chocolate and peanut butter are always a match made in heaven, and those big nuggets add a boost of bold peanut butter and chocolate flavor.
Streusel topping with peanut butter and chocolate in a one-bowl fast and easy cake.
It’s my idea of a good cake and a good time, for sure.
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Peanut Butter Honey Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate-Peanut Butter Streusel
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- 2 large eggs
- ¾ cup honey
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick, softened
- ⅓ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Streusel
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- For the Cake – Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray, or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and optional salt.
- Add the eggs, honey, buttermilk, butter, 1/3 cup peanut butter, vanilla, and beat with an electric mixer on medium-low for about 1 minute. Stop, scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and beat for 1 more minute.
- Turn batter out into prepared pan; set aside.
- For the Streusel – In the same mixing bowl (no need to wash it), combine brown sugar, 1/2 cup peanut butter, flour, and stir with a spoon until sandy pebbles form.
- Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Sprinkle streusel evenly over cake batter.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. Allow cake to cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Lift cake out using foil overhang, slice and serve. Cake is best fresh, but will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 4 days, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Do you have a favorite cake recipe?
What’s your go-to recipe to bring to a potluck?
LOVE the new design!! And this cake is awesome :)
Thanks, Katrina, I’m loving it too!
Looks great and gorgeous pictures. And wow, so much dessert inspiration here! I usually start with a basic raw vegan chocolate walnut cake for parties and potlucks and tweak it slightly for the occasion or holiday.
Thanks for saying hi, Christine! Hope you’re doing great and thanks for the compliments :)
This is one of the yummiest looking things I’ve laid eyes on lately (and I’ve seen a lot). That streusel is just killing me! I’d be hard-pressed not to eat that right out of the bowl, too. That was a great choice for The Big Potluck! I agree, you can never go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter.
Thanks for the opening line and compliments in your comment! :)
This looks so good! I love the streusel top instead of a traditional icing. Definitely will pinning this to make soon enough, thank you!
I’m sure this cake was a winner at the potluck!!! Can’t wait to try this.
Thanks Erika & LMK if you do!
After being stumped on what kind of cake to make you certainly ended up with an awesome one!
Thank you! :)
I love how you did a streusel on top of this divine cake! I actually LOVE potlucks! Maybe because I get to choose what to contribute to the party, too…which is my favorite part, of course! I can’t wait to bake this!
You made me giggle when you mentioned about the wine! Course, any parties in my area DO NOT have any of those fabulous beverages just lying around…does living in UTAH explain it? (Even when I host an event, my guests would gasp if I served anything like that!) Have a great day, Averie!
Oh wow, they would have gasped plenty then at this event. Lots of wine flowing :)
And I actually love potlucks b/c it gives me a chance to cook something I wouldn’t likely cook ‘just for us’. Although this cake isn’t big, just a 9×13, I would never just make a cake like this for me, hubs, and our 6 yr old. This was a fun excuse to bake a bigger cake and one that I wouldn’t have done on my own otherwise!
I’ve seen Amanda’s pic of the cake and was hoping you would eventually share the recipe. And here it is in all it’s glory! So pretty and springy! Pinning!
Oh how interesting and fun you saw! Yep, here it is :)
Peanut butter, chocolate, and a streusel topping all sounds like a match made in heaven! My birthday is coming up and I think I need to make this for my birthday instead of a traditional cake!
It would make a great bday cake IMO! Happy early Bday!
Since this cake has streusel, I think it can be called coffee cake. And if it is coffee cake, then it is acceptable to eat for breakfast. So, this means I can eat peanut butter and chocolate for breakfast! Fantastic. My favorite part about this recipe is the streusel. I’m a sucker for frosting, but this steusel looks mighty fine on this cake. And the fact that it is a chocolate peanut butter version makes it that much more irresistible. Can’t wait to give this recipe a try!
I love your logic for sure :)
This cake… oh this cake is amazing, Averie! I just made cookies with peanut butter and honey last week and am now obsessed with the combo.
Can’t wait to try this. I love peanut butter and honey, preferably on toast so they get all melty and gooey. Quick question – you have butter listed in the ingredients but I don’t see where it goes in the recipe?
Also, my sister-in-law got me your book, at my request, for my birthday and I’m very impatiently awaiting its arrival. Can’t wait to bake my way through it!
That’s so awesome of your SIL and I appreciate your support!!
Butter – I just edited the post! With the buttermilk, butter, and peanut butter. (lots of butters going on there – ha!) LMK if you try the cake or recipes from my book once you get it! Thanks again!
Oh I like this idea. I’m not really a big cake eater. I do, however, love a good Italian Cream cake. I guess it’s the typical white or chocolate cakes I don’t really care for. But one with lots of spices and cream cheese frosting? Now we’re talking! This looks more grown up – I’m thinking it’d be perfect for a brunch.
It would be perfect for a brunch, too! And I could go for an Italian Cream cake right now!
This cake looks amazing Averie! Love choc. & PB together! It must have been so hard not being able to taste it while you were taking the pics because I know I would have been tempted too!
Supremely hard!!
I do believe I just fell off my chair. Chocolate peanut butter cake with streusel?!?!? My mind cannot handle this. I love your picture of the cake out of the pan with the pieces around it. And your pictures make want to take all that streusel and face plant. The colors and flavors are so beautiful Averie. This is so being pinned!
And thanks for the pin! And the photography compliments! I was happy the way they turned out!
That cake is so YOU I think it was a perfect decision to bring to the potluck. I bet there were no leftovers. ;)
Even with tons!!!! of food at the event, only 2 little small squares! The food/quantity was like being on a cruise ship…epic and never-ending!