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Happy Birthday Bill!

When Bill and I first started dating (this was pre-paleo Bill), he found out that he had passed his final professional registration exams to become a licensed landscape architect. This was a big milestone in his career, and one we wanted to celebrate.

Aware of Bill’s love for Reese’s peanut butter cups, I had the perfect idea for a “celebratory treat”. An amazing bakery near my house makes the most unreal chocolate peanut butter cake, garnished with peanut butter frosting, and mini Reese’s peanut butter cups. This cake is a Reese’s lover’s heaven, to say the least! The cake was a hit. Bill loved every bite, and it was the perfect treat to celebrate.

For Bill’s birthday, I wanted to some how recreate that delicious cake for him. For the recipe, my plan of attack was to use our Dark Chocolate Cake recipe, with some modifications of course. For Bill’s cake, I made dark chocolate hazelnut butter for the inner icing layer, and an accidental dark chocolate ganache frosting for the rest of the cake (My brilliant idea was to use palm shortening instead of grapeseed oil to make the chocolate frosting. Little did I know, adding the palm shortening would create a “ganache-like” frosting, delish! What a wonderful surprise!). I also made dark chocolate mini sunbutter cups to garnish the top, similar to the other cake. For aesthetic purposes only, we decided to do without the sunbutter cups. Instead, we served the sunbutter cups as an additional little treat to the slice of cake-as if a slice of dark chocolate cake wasn’t enough-haha.

This cake was the perfect ending to an amazing meal (Bill’s birthday meal soon to be posted), all in celebration of my wonderful Bill.



Dark Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • 4 tablespoons Palm Shortening

Process:

  1. In a pot, or double boiler, melt chocolate chips on low heat.
  2. When chips are completely melted, transfer into a small bowl and let cool for about 10 minutes.
  3. Add palm shortening to melted chocolate, and blend with a hand mixer until combined.
  4. Quickly pour over cake and frost. (you want to work with this frosting while it is still warm, when it cools it hardens to a ganache.)



Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting


Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups roasted Hazelnuts
  • 1 cup Enjoy Life Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • 3 tablespoons Macadamia Oil

Process:

  1. Place nuts and oil into a food processor and blend until you have created a ‘nut butter’ consistency.
  2. In a pot, or double boiler, melt chocolate chips on low heat.
  3. Add hazelnut butter to melted chocolate chips.
  4. Keep refrigerated.
  5. Place 1 cup of refrigerated dark chocolate hazelnut butter in a small bowl and blend with a hand mixer until you have created a whipped consistency.

*An alternative to this frosting would be to use organic almond butter. We used hazelnut because Bill’s dad is allergic to almonds.



Mini Dark Chocolate Sunbutter Cups


Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup Enjoy Life Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • Sunbutter
  • Mini nut butter cup candy molds.

Process:

  1. In a pot or double boiler, melt chocolate chips on low heat.
  2. Paint the inside of the candy molds with the melted chocolate.
  3. Place candy mold in freezer for 10 minutes.
  4. Remove from freezer and fill molds with sunbutter.
  5. Cover the tops of the molds with remaining melted chocolate and freeze for another 10 minutes.



Dark Chocolate Coconut Flour Cake

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup Coconut Flour, sifted
  • 1/4 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
  • 1 cup melted Coconut Oil
  • 1 cup Pure Maple Syrup
  • 10 omega 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon Pure Vanilla Extract
  • 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda

Process:

  1. Preheat oven to 325.
  2. In a small bowl, add sifted coconut flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.
  3. In a large bowl, or Kitchen Aid mixer, blend eggs, vanilla, maple syrup, and melted coconut oil.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet and blend.
  5. Grease two 9 inch cake pans with coconut oil.
  6. Pour batter into pans.
  7. Bake for 35 minutes. Test center with a tooth pick-if the tooth pick comes out clean, then the cakes are done.
  8. Remove cakes from oven and cool.

This cake received four stars from Bill and his family. It is definitely one that we will be making again. Although the cake was mouth watering, it was only a small, tasty portion to a wonderful evening with Bill’s amazing parents and sister. Love, laughter, and wonderful food. All birthday wishes were granted this year.

Happy Birthday Bill! You are loved.

As always, Enjoy!

Primal Palate Spice Blends

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    COMMENTS

    1. November 29, 2010

      Awesome!!! My birthday is in January. I'm gonna send this link to my husband. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    2. December 1, 2010

      Awwwww, LOVELY post.
      I discovered your blog while looking for SunButter recipes. As a SunButter blogger, I love seeing clever adaptations: yours is terrific, and the photos are gorgeous.
      Looking forward to following your blog.

    3. December 1, 2010

      Thanks Elizabeth – so many wonderful compliments! We look forward to having you follow, too!

      -Hayley and Bill

    4. January 3, 2011

      I am wanting to do this cake for my husband's birthday. We will have about 12 people. How many people did your cake serve? Thanks!

    5. January 4, 2011

      Hey Mindy –

      We used 9" cake pans – being a 2 layer cake, it should easily feed 12 people!

    6. March 10, 2011

      Well I found the recipe ๐Ÿ˜€ It looks so good, you guys are geniuses! Just a question: is there an alternative to using palm shortening? There are too many environmental concerns related to palm harvesting for me to use it just yet.

    7. March 10, 2011

      Hi Emily,

      So glad you found it! For the ganache you could use heavy cream if you allow for some dairy in your diet. A typical ganache uses heavy cream and dark chocolate. You would bring the heavy cream to a boil and then pour it over the chocolate chips. Whisk the cream and chocolate together until it is fully blended, and then allow to cool slightly before pouring it over the cake. Hope that helps!

      If you do not use any full fat dairy, you could attempt a ganache with coconut milk using the same method, although we have not tried, so we do not know how that would turn out.

      Let us know how it goes for you!

    8. May 8, 2011

      YUM

    9. August 4, 2011

      Um, wow. This looks INCREDIBLE. One order for me, please!

      -whatrunslori.com

    10. January 31, 2012

      Thanks for the recipe! My husband is having a hard time completely committing to Paleo. His birthday and the Superbowl are Sunday, I plan on winning him over with this cake. Thanks!

    11. February 3, 2012

      This comment has been removed by the author.

    12. February 3, 2012

      Hailey,

      Is there anything else I can use besides coconut flour? My boyfriend and I tried using coconut flour to make pancakes and every time we made it he's tummy didn't respond to it very well ๐Ÿ™

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