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Peanut Candy Bar Cake (PayDay Cake)

So my H wanted a PayDay candy bar cake for his birthday recently, so I searched the internet high and low to find a CAKE recipe and not just like a bar-like recipe.  I found this recipe and decided to try it, but with a minor modification.

See, when I say homemade, I truly mean homemade.  I prefer not to use box mixes where you just add egg and oil, I bake from scratch.  Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda or Powder, Salt, Vanilla etc.

So the recipe called for a yellow box cake mix.  You can follow the recipe as is on the website if you'd like, but I will post how I did it below.

First: The Cake  (This recipe is from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)

Preheat oven to 375*
Grease and flour your baking pan(s)  ( (2) 9 1/2" or 8 1/2 " round pans or (1) 9x13 rectangular baking dish)
(I most always use a 9x13 pan if I will be transporting the cake to another location)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter (softened, room temp for 30 mins)  
3 eggs      (room temp for 30 mins)
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 milk (as with previous recipes, I use Silk milk due to my Husband's allergy to regular milk)

Directions:

1.)  Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes
2.) In a bowl (or measuring cup) stir together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside
3.) In a mixing bowl, beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.  Gradually add sugar until well combined
4.) Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5.) Add in vanilla
6.) Alternately add flour mixture an dmilk, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.
7.) Spread batter into pan(s)

8.) Bake for 20-25 minutes for (2) round pans or 25-30 minutes for (1) 9x13 rectangular pan (it took mine about 30 minutes, maybe a few more for it to be done)

While the cake is in the oven, get your area cleaned up and reset for the rest of the cake making.  Below is the list of ingredients you need to make the PayDay part of the cake

Ingredients for Topping:

3 cups mini-marshmallows
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter (softened)
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups peanut butter chips
2 cups salted peanuts (I could only find "seasoned" peanuts, so I went with that)
1 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal
    

1.) While the cake is in the oven, get your marshmallows measured out and set aside
2.) Put the corn syrup, butter, vanilla and peanut butter chips into a medium sized saucepan but do not start heating up yet

3.) Mix crispy rice cereal and peanuts into a separate bowl, set aside
4.) As the cake is nearing the end of baking, turn your saucepan burner on medium heat
5.) As soon as the cake is done, sprinkle the top with the marshmallows and put back in the oven for 1-2 minutes or until they start to puff (Note: make sure marshmallows are in a single layer on the cake, you might have some bare areas and i suggest trying to keep them away from the very edges of the pan (see final picture below for why)) 

6.) Your peanut sauce should be starting to melt, have a spatula handy to stir it as its melting down.

7.) Once your sauce is done, immediately mix in peanut/cereal mixture.  It is going to be a little difficult, and I can't say that some cereal didn't jump out of the saucepan and get crunched on my stove.

8.)  Don't play with the mixture too much, and get it on top of the marshmallows as soon as possible.
9.) The original recipe says to spoon the mixture over the marshmallows. How the hell are you supposed to spoon a think mixture over gooey marshmallows? Anyways, scoop decent sized blobs of mixture on the marshmallows and try your best to flatten/spread it.
10.)  Let the whole pan/cake cool completely before covering it.  You may want to try to flatten any excess marshmallow goo off the edges if you are putting on a lid.

 





ENJOY!