Chocolate PB Swirl Cake

If you've only been reading this blog for a few months, you would swear that all I do is eat things like Bananas Foster French Toast, Basil Pesto, and Crispy Almond Cookies. You would swear I never ate a salad, since I haven't posted about one in a while.

You'd be wrong. I just don't believe in posting the same three meals (beans + rice + veg + salsa, egg burritos, and pizzalads) over and over and over again. I think you'd get bored, I'd get bored. Everyone gets bored.

Really, the focus of my diet is to maximize fresh fruits and vegetables. Every day for breakfast, I include at least 1 cup of fruit. For lunch, I have a plastic baggie of fruit and a plastic baggie of veggies (or just a big salad), and then some kind of mixed dinner (like pasta with a veggie based sauce, or a sandwich loaded with lettuce, tomato, and fruit on the side).

 And every day includes something sweet. Like chocolate cake.

With an impending move, I've been trying to eat only things from the pantry. I don't want to have to buy ANY pantry staples, and I don't want to move any of them either. The answer is to eat them. I solidly have enough flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices, sugars, and flavorings to make several sweet treats before July 22.

This week was a chocolate cake. From scratch. With no recipe to go by. Pantry items to use up:

1 box jell-o pudding mix (Sugar Free)
dutch cocoa powder
the bottom of a jar of peanut butter
1/2 a bag of mini chocolate chips

The recipe:
1 box jello sugar-free chocolate pudding
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c cocoa powder
1.5 c white flour
1 c sugar or sugar substitute (we have splenda, so I used 1/2 sugar, 1/2 splenda)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 c mini chocolate chips
1 c milk or water
1/2 c oil
1/2 c PB
2-3 tbsp milk

Mix dry ingredients in bowl including jello powder. Mix wet ingredients in seperate bowl and combine. Dough should be moist but not gummy. Transfer into 2 9x9 pans or 1 9x13 pan to make 1 inch high dough in pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. In microwave, melt PB and milk until runny. Spoon into several places on top of cake mixture, and use a knife to slice through the PB and cake to create swirls.

Bake at 350 30-40 minutes.

The cake is perfectly moist and fudgey, with a slight hint of peanut butter.