A few months ago, a friend of mine jokingly showed me a picture of a giant peanut butter and jelly sandwich cake. As I tend to do, I mentally filed away the cake-wish and tried to find out when his birthday is. Unfortunately, he is super-secret about his birthday (It’s not even on Facebook! *gasp!*)… But I managed to get the cake made and surprise him with it, only a day late! š
First, assemble your ingredients.
You are going to need:
- Your favorite vanilla cake recipe (2 layers of cake, cooled to room temperature)
- Your favorite vanilla icing recipe, divided (If using pre-made frosting, you will need 2 tubs)
- Red and brown food coloring (I useĀ theseĀ because the gel food coloring provides a more vibrant color without thinning out the icing)
- 1 12-inch icing bag (You can also use a large Ziplock bag for this)
- 2 spoons
- 1 pair of chopsticks
- A piece of paper
- Marker
- Scissors
- Sharp knifeĀ (not shown)
- Cutting board (not shown)
Begin by dyeing your icing red and brown to resemble strawberry jelly and peanut butter. (Alternatively, you can use purple for grape jelly or whatever color you choose!) Add a pea-sized amount of food coloring to the icing using a chop stick and mix in.
Next, fold your paper in half and draw half a piece of bread for a stencil. Cut out and unfold.
Place your stencil on one of the cake layers. (Confirm that your stencil is not larger than your cake layer. If it is, cut out another stencil to fit.)
On a cutting board, cut out the bread shape. Repeat with the other cake layer. (If your cake layers are not flat, cut off the top piece of the each layer.) Brush off any large crumbs from the cake layers.
To assemble the cake, first put a small amount of icing on a cake circle or plate. Place one layer of cake on the cake circle and add the brown frosting.
Spread the brown frosting over the first layer of cake. Make sure some of it overhangs the side of the cake.
Now, for the red frosting… This is easiest to do when piped on with an icing bag so that the colors of frosting don’t mix together. (If you’d like, chill the frosted first layer of the cake in the fridge for 15 minutes or the freezer for 5 minutes.)
To do this, fold over the top of a 12-inch icing bag to form a cuff. Place the bag in a tall glass and fill with red icing.
Unfold the top of the bag, and lift it out of the glass.Ā Cut the end of the bag and pipe icing around the edge of the cake, on top of the brown icing.
Pipe the remainder of the icing in the center of the cake, and gently spread the icing out. Similar to the brown layer, make sure the red layer slightly overhangs the edge of the cake.
Place the second layer on top of the red frosting, and you have a giant peanut butter & jelly sandwich! Serve plain or decorate if you’d like! Enjoy!! š
Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below! And thanks for reading! š
Pie With Sparkles 
That’s fantastic! When you have to do a lot of cutting, like in the the PB&J cake, do you find it’s easier to control crumbs and “falling apart” if the cake is frozen after it is baked? I was told that once, but I don’t know if it’s true or just a baker’s tale.
Depending on the kind of cake, yes… My cake recipe tends to be pretty heavy and thick, so I don’t always need to chill it. Since this was a pretty easy shape to cut out, it didn’t really crumble.
However, if you are going to use a box-mix or a crumbly cake recipe of your own, chilling your cake for 15 min in the freezer will help immensely!
And btw, not a baker’s legend! I do chill my cakes if I’m going to do any sort of carving that’s more complicated than a simple slice, like this cake! š