Peanut Butter Coffee Cake is a heavenly mixture of chocolate, peanut butter, and Nutella all under a crunchy layer of a peanut streusel and dark chocolate drizzle.

Do you ever see a recipe that you just can’t get out of your mind? Well, this Peanut Butter Coffee Cake Recipe was that recipe for me.
I picked up a copy of a magazine called “Southern Cast Iron” Winter 2017 edition. I’ve never seen this magazine before but the recipes looked amazing including the one for Peanut Butter Coffee Cake. I just couldn’t wait to try my hand at it.
From the title and the photograph, I knew I was going to be using chocolate and peanut butter. What I didn’t realize is that it also has a layer of Nutella. The streusel on this baby makes it one delicious peanut butter crumb cake.
The only problem I have with this whole darned thing is that I didn’t come up with it first!

When I was young(er) my mother made a delicious coffee cake and we ate it for breakfast!
I don’t know that I would feed this Peanut Butter Coffee Cake to my children for breakfast because they’d be bouncing off the walls once they got to school. I would surely eat it any time of day, however.
What is a coffee cake?
Coffee cake is cake flavored with or intended to be eaten with coffee.
It’s delicious any time but I tend to think of it as a legal way to eat cake for breakfast! The American version is a variety of a crumb cake like this Peanut Butter Coffee Cake recipe.
Tips for the Perfect Chocolate Peanut Butter Coffee Cake
- If you don’t care for Nutella (someone actually said this!) you could substitute it for any creamy spread. I would definitely use chocolate or chocolate peanut butter spread.
- I used a 10-inch cast-iron skillet instead of the 3 6-inch cast-iron skillets which is what the recipe called for. As a result, I had to bake mine 20 minutes longer until it tested done.
Chocolate, peanut butter, Nutella, streusel…what’s not to love? I need to get me some little skillets so I don’t have to share the next time I make it.
Well, maybe I will share it. My eyes are always bigger than my tummy but that doesn’t keep me from trying!
Ingredients for Peanut Butter Coffee Cake recipe:
- Flour – All-purpose flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
- Sugar – both white and brown sugar. My favorite brown sugar is dark but either is fine.
- Peanut Butter – I used creamy but crunchy would be delicious too.
- Dry Roasted Peanuts – Salted is what I chose. You could use lightly salted or nonsalted.
- Butter – I used unsalted. Since the peanuts and peanut butter contain salt I didn’t feel additional salt was needed in this recipe.
- Sour Cream – Gives this recipe a creamy consistency. You could use lite but I wouldn’t use non-fat.
- Milk – The recipe calls for whole milk and that’s what I used. I believe 2% would work as well.
- Nutella – This creamy hazelnut spread is amazing in this recipe but you could substitute it for another chocolate or peanut butter spread.
- Vanilla – I only use a pure vanilla extract.
- Baking Powder – Leavening agent for the cake is necessary.
- Eggs – I use large for all my recipes.
- Salt – leave it out if you use salted butter.
- Dark Chocolate – I use at least a 60% Cocoa
What you may need to make this Peanut Butter Coffee Cake Recipe:
- Cast Iron Skillet – I use cast-iron skillets whenever I can. There isn’t anything like them when it comes to browning food. They last forever, and they’re our favorite pan for camping too.
If you liked this recipe, I think you’ll enjoy these too.
- Chocolate Coffee Cake with Sour Cream
- Orange Streusel Coffee Cake
- Basic Muffin recipe
- Cherry Bread
- Rhubarb Oatmeal Muffins
We love cast iron skillet recipes. Our Skillet Apple Pie and Apple Rhubarb Skillet pies have been very popular.

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Peanut Butter Coffee Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Topping
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 tbsp peanut butter I used creamy
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup roasted salted peanuts, coarsely chopped
Cake
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 3/4 cup Nutella
Garnish
- Melted dark chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 3-6″ cast iron skillets or a 10″ skillet with non-stick cooking spray.
Topping
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and brown sugar. Using a mixer on medium speed, beat butter and peanut butter until crumbly. Stir in the peanuts and set aside.
Cake
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter, peanut butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in sour cream and vanilla.
- In a medium bowl whisk flour, salt, and baking powder together. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture alternating with milk, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
- Pour half of the batter in the skillet. Spoon Nutella over batter. Top with remaining batter. Sprinkle with topping.
- Bake until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 23-25 minutes for 6″ skillets or approximately 40 minutes for a 10-inch skillet. Loosely cover with foil to prevent excess browning if necessary.
- Garnish with melted chocolate.
MaryAnne Rolfe
Sunday 28th of March 2021
Oh Lordy this was a good coffee cake! It is now added to my list of fave coffee cakes to make! My husband loves peanut butter on just about everything, but with the chocolate it was very much a "WOW"! Thank you so much for this recipe, your pictures made this recipe look so good that I had to make it right away, thank you!
Julie Menghini
Sunday 28th of March 2021
Thank you so much, MaryAnne for letting me know you enjoyed it! I'm a coffee Cake lover too. It's a great excuse to have sweets for breakfast. Peanut Butter and Chocolate are a match made in culinary heaven!
Isabel
Tuesday 13th of October 2020
Can I use cashews instead of peanuts in this recipe? Thanks so much again and sorry if it's a dumb question, cause I know this is a peanut butter cake! haha! It's cause all I have in my kitchen are cashew nuts.
Julie Menghini
Wednesday 14th of October 2020
Absolutely Isabel! That's not a dumb question and I love hearing from you.
Claudia Lamascolo
Wednesday 9th of October 2019
This really looks excellent I could really dive right into these delicious flavors!
Julie Menghini
Monday 14th of October 2019
Thank you Claudia!
Sophie Anderson
Monday 7th of October 2019
I would love a slice of this coffee cake for breakfast! I love the addition of the peanut butter.
Julie Menghini
Tuesday 8th of October 2019
Thank you Sophie!
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