First things first: It took four tries to get this right. The first time I tried making this, over two years ago, the recipe called for a full tablespoon of baking powder and 1 ½ teaspoons of baking soda. I remembered thinking that sounded like way too much, but the recipe said what it said so I gave it a shot. I had a middle school volcano experiment in my oven. The second time I tried it was about a year later, when I was taking another pass through the recipes and had completely forgotten that I’d tried this before—but I remembered really fucking quickly when it erupted all over the bottom of the oven again. The third time I cut the baking powder down to a teaspoon, but there was still a little bit of overflow from the baking soda. So, the last time I cut the baking soda down to a teaspoon and it finally stayed in the dish. However, the actual baking time for this little bastard is still a mystery.
A caveat before we get started: The original baking temp and time was 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. That was a fucking laugh. By the time I’d gotten to my fourth iteration of this recipe, I lowered the temp to 325 degrees and it baked for 1 ½ hours and still wasn’t done and I had to leave the house by that time, so I just turned off the oven and left it in there. It wasn’t totally baked when I got home but it wasn’t totally unbaked either so I decided four times was enough.
Here’s what you’ll need:
3 Cups Flour
3 ½ Cups Brown Sugar, packed
1 ½ Cups Peanut Butter
6 Tbsp. Butter, softened
6 Tbsp. Lard, softened
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
¼ Cup Dry Milk
2 Eggs
1 ⅔ Cups Water
2 tsp. Vanilla
Mix together flour, brown sugar, peanut butter, butter, and lard. Remove two cups and set aside for topping.
Add to remainder of flour mixture: baking powder, baking soda, dry milk, eggs, water and vanilla. Beat until a smooth batter is formed.
Pour batter into a greased 9” x 13” pan. Sprinkle two cups of topping on top.
Bake in a 325-degree oven for 75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean—which is probably closer to 2 hours.
As much of a gigantic pain in the ass this recipe has been, the result is very good. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy trying to get it right.
Love peanut butter, so this deserves a chance.
ETA: Your perserverance and hard work on this are very much appreciated.
Do you think somebody messed up writing this recipe and confused teaspoon and tablespoon? Way too often they just get abbreviated as t and T. They also get written as tsp and tbs, which isn’t much harder to confuse.
In addition to the tablespoon of baking powder which works better as a teaspoon, 1 1/2 teaspoons of soda is the same as 1/2 tablespoon, and I wonder if someone originally wrote 1/2 tablespoon when they meant 1/2 teaspoon.
If somebody back in the past had standardized on coffeespoon instead of teaspoon, I’d bet a million cakes wouldn’t have been ruined.
No she definitely wrote it out longhand. My suspicion is that baking soda and baking powder were somehow not as potent then as they are today.
Or someone bought baking soda and baking powder and forgot about it in the basement and it was a decade old and stale!
If it kills me, so be it.
“If this is wrong I don’t wanna be right…”
I am always encouraged by the baking travails of others; I am heartened to know that I am not the only one who has issues . . . also, this looks delicious.
This looks delicious! I’m hit or miss on coffee cakes, but I feel like I’d eat this straight from the pan.