peanut butter lemon marble cake with lemon frosting

yaaay - my first recipe guys!!! :)

i'm sooo excited to share this with you today! 
this afternoon i decided to bake a cake so i stalked pinterest and my moms old recipes and finally decided to make my delicious peanut butter lemon marble cake! 
i've made this cake once before a few weeks ago and my friends and family loved it! it sounds weird to have lemon and peanut butter together but it tastes havenly! it has this sweet and fresh taste of lemons to it and then there's the crunchy salty peanuts and the cocoa... oooh all this just makes it taste fresh, sweet, salty and absolutely awesome at the same time haha! 
i think my mom found this recipe a pretty long time ago in some of her weekly magazines (i admit that i always read them, too... hahaha! the recipes are really good sometimes) and she asked me to try it because it really sounded weird but interesting. so times passed by and we kind of forgot about the recipe... 
a few weeks ago then i decided to bake a cake so i had a look in my moms recipe books and folders and... TADAAAA - i found the peanut butter lemon marble cake recipe! hahaha...
i finally made it and it probably took me like half an hour and literally nobody could even resist the batter!! we were eating like half of the batter before even baking it hahaha! 
well, i gotta admit that this recipe is pretty rich on calories (ca. 390 per serving) BUT it's worth it! 
so here it is - MY VERY FIRST RECIPE! :))

peanutbutter lemon marble cake with lemon frosting (recipe for ~16 servings)

for the cake batter:

• 250g (1 1/8 cup) unsalted butter
• 250g (1 1/8 cup) granulated sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 4 eggs (size m)
• 375g (3 3/8 cups) all-purpose flour
• ~5 tsp baking powder (one package, ~15g)
• 125-150ml (1/2 cup) skim or low-fat milk
• the zest of 1 bio lemon (don't throw the lemon away, you'll need it for the frosting!)
• 2-3 tbsp of sweetened cocoa (you can take unsweetened cocoa, too, but i like it sweet)
• 3 tbsp peanut butter (i took the creamy one since the next step is adding peanuts)
• 50g  (1/3 cup) peanuts (unsalted, if you don't like the sweet'n'salty-mix a lot)
• flour and shortening for your baking dish

for the frosting:

• 250g (2 1/4 cups) confectioners' sugar
• 4-6 tbsp lemon juice 
• yellow food coloring, if you want to add some more lemon-y color to your cake frosting

1

preheat your convection oven to 175°C (350°F).

mix butter, sugar and salt in a bowl, stir until you have a smooth and creamy paste (i used an electric hand mixer).

Stir in eggs one by one until well blended. Then add flour and baking powder alternating with the milk (don't add all of it at once because it might be too much... i needed 150ml.) and stir well.

2

set half of the batter aside in another bowl. take the other half and add the lemon zest. stir well.

take the second half and add peanut butter and cocoa. blend well. you might want to add some more cocoa (for darker color and for sweeter taste).

3

grease a baking dish and sprinkle with flour so the cake won't stick to it. i used a bundt cake dish (26cm=10'-11') but you can use any cooking dish you like. i prefer having a round cake instead of a loaf so i used the bundt cake dish. 

4
now fill the baking dish with the peanut butter cocoa batter and lemon batter, alternating so you get the marble effect. i used a tbsp to fill it in to get a more intensive marbel-y effect. after filling it in i used a fork (you can also use a toothpick) to prick and with that marble it even more, but do as you wish.

that's what it looked like after pricking and before baking it...

5
bake the cake for 50-60 minutes. mine was good after 50 minutes (i tested it with a toothpick and it wasn't sticky anymore) so i removed it from the oven. if you leave it in for too long it might dry out so you better remove it a little earlier. then allow it to cool down (i removed it from the baking dish afterwards because it is pretty soft and fragile right after baking. i couldn't resist to eat a piece already (it's really good when it's a little warm and soft inside) but actually you have to let it sit for at least a few hours until you can add the frosting.
btw mine is all cracked, i know, but if you compare to the picture on step 4 you see that the cake rises a lot so make sure you use a baking dish that has at least twice the size of your unbaked batter in it. and never mind if it cracks - it's just the bottom side of your cake...

...and that's what it looked like after baking. twice the size!

6
for the frosting mix confectioners' sugar and lemon juice until it is smooth but not too runny. add food coloring (optional) and pour on your cake. if you want to cover it completely you might need a bit more frosting and a brush. let dry completely and enjoy your peanut butter lemon marble cake with lemon frosting!

_____________________________________________


weeeell, since i'm new to all this i don't really know how the whole food blogging thing actually works but i wanna tell you that i don't own any of this since i found the recipe from an old german magazine somewhere among my moms old recipes... i just want to share my experience with you and on this blog i will usually try out recipes i found on some blog or on pinterest. if there's any credit to somebody, i will certainly give it but in this case i guess it's okay to say this is from some kind of (old) german magazine.
so, my friends... happy baking, commenting and pinning! :) hope you liked my first post! i'm always happy about some feedback! ;)
xoxo, vanessa.

p.s.: sorry if there's any mistakes in my language! i'm not english native and my mother language is german so pardon my mistakes...