Reminiscent of your favorite childhood sandwich, this Peanut Butter and Jelly Poke Cake is an easy doctored up cake mix, filled with jelly and topped with a fluffy peanut butter frosting!
If you didn’t grow up on Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, then we lived completely different lives! That was one of the best parts of my childhood.
Even to this day, when the craving hits this gal will whip herself up a quick and easy sandwich just to bring back that nostalgia of my youth.
Of course I have 4 kids, so peanut butter and jelly are a normal part of our routine so I thought that this Peanut Butter and Jelly Poke Cake would be a fun back to school dessert!
We can’t resist any desserts that have peanut butter, especially cakes! Well this one is elevated. Poked and filled with strawberry jam and topped with a peanut butter frosting which is drizzled with more jam, peanut butter and chopped peanuts.
This cake literally feels like it came from the heavens! But I might be biased because we just can’t resist this cake around here. The flavors go together like well…peanut butter and jelly (totally pun intended).
If you or your kids are fans of this iconic flavor then you will absolutely adore this Peanut Butter and Jelly Poke Cake!
Some of our other favorite peanut butter recipes we have on our site include: Silky Peanut Butter Brownies, Peanut Butter Cheesecake and Reese’s Peanut Butter Bars!
WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
- Using a doctored up cake mix, this recipe comes together quickly.
- Unlike traditional poke cakes, you don’t have to let this one cool to set up!
- You can fill with any of your favorite jellies or jams!
INGREDIENTS NEEDED (FULL RECIPE AT BOTTOM):
Yellow cake mix
Eggs
Milk
Salted butter
Peanut butter
Strawberry jam
Whipped topping
Peanuts
HOW TO MAKE A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY POKE CAKE, STEP BY STEP:
- Preheat oven to 350℉ In a large bowl combine cake mix and 1 cup of peanut butter until crumbly.
- Add eggs, milk, and melted butter to cake mixture; blend at low speed until moistened. Then beat 2 minutes at high speed.
- Pour batter into a greased 9×13 pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.
- Use the end of a wooden spoon to poke holes to warm the cake.
- Microwave jam until thin, about 30 seconds. Carefully pour the jam evenly over the cake into the holes.
- Allow the cake to cool completely, about an hour.
- Meanwhile, beat ½ cup of peanut butter with an electric mixer on high speed for 2 minutes.
- Gently fold in ⅓ of the whipped topping at a time until well blended after each addition.
- Spread the peanut butter whipped topping over top of the cooled cake.
- Place ¼ cup of jam and ¼ cup of peanut butter into 2 separate bowls and microwave until thin, about 10 seconds.
- Drizzle the peanut butter and jam over the whipped topping.
- Sprinkle on the chopped peanuts. Serve immediately, or store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
WHAT IS A POKE CAKE?
A poke cake or a poke and pour cake can be a few different things, you can either use jello, pudding, sweetened condensed milk among other things, such as this cake using jam/jelly.
The most popular two ingredients being either jello and pudding. The concept is to poke the cake and pour the jello or pudding into the holes of the cake so when bite into it you have the filling in every bite .
These cakes have been around for many generations and passed down from person to person, family to family. You really can’t go wrong with having at least one Poke Cake in your recipe box!
CAN I MAKE MY OWN HOMEMADE CAKE?
Absolutely! If you have your favorite peanut butter cake recipe you can absolutely use it! As long as it makes a 9″x13″ sized cake, you will be fine.
We like to take shortcuts sometimes and don’t believe that everything needs to be homemade, but we do like to doctor it up so we still give it our own flair!
WHAT KIND OF JAMS/JELLIES CAN I USE?
So this Poke Cake Recipe is perfect to test out different jellies and jams on. You can use either or even preservatives as well. Some great flavors that you can try are:
- Grape
- Raspberry
- Blackberry
- Triple Berry
- Cherry
HOW TO STORE:
Because of the whipped topping in the frosting this cake needs to remain refrigerated when not consuming. You can wrap in plastic wrap and it will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3-5 days.
This can also be frozen, wrap your cake in a double layer of plastic wrap and then foil. It should keep in the freezer for up to 3 months, let defrost in the refrigerator.
TIPS AND TRICKS:
- We doctor up a boxed cake mix for this Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake, but you can make your own homemade if you’d like.
- You can use jam, jelly or preserves for the filling.
- Switch out the flavor of your filling, see some of my tips above.
- This can be frozen for up to 3 months.
- Adding the chopped peanuts to the top are optional but we like the crunch it provides this poke cake!
If you want a fun back, tasty and nostalgic flavored cake recipe, then you absolutely have to try my Peanut Butter and Jelly Poke Cake! The whole family will love it.
If you like this recipe you might also like:
If you’ve tried this PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY POKE CAKE or any other recipe on my site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and what shenanigans I’m getting into!
Peanut Butter and Jelly Poke Cake
Ingredients
- 15.25 ounces yellow cake mix
- 4 eggs
- 1 ¼ cups milk
- ½ cup salted butter melted
- 1 ¾ cups peanut butter divided (creamy or chunky will work)
- 1 ¼ cup strawberry jam divided
- 8 ounces container whipped topping
- ¼ cup chopped peanuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉ In a large bowl combine cake mix and 1 cup of peanut butter until crumbly.
- Add eggs, milk, and melted butter to cake mixture; blend at low speed until moistened. Then beat 2 minutes at high speed.
- Pour batter into a greased 9x13-inch baking pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.
- Use the end of a wooden spoon to poke holes to warm the cake.
- Microwave jam until thin, about 30 seconds. Carefully pour the jam evenly over the cake into the holes.
- Allow the cake to cool completely, about an hour.
- Meanwhile, beat ½ cup of peanut butter with an electric mixer on high speed for 2 minutes.
- Gently fold in ⅓ of the whipped topping at a time until well blended after each addition.
- Spread the peanut butter whipped topping over top of the cooled cake.
- Place ¼ cup of jam and ¼ cup of peanut butter into 2 separate bowls and microwave until thin, about 10 seconds.
- Drizzle the peanut butter and jam over the whipped topping.
- Sprinkle on the chopped peanuts. Serve immediately, or store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Notes
- We doctor up a boxed cake mix for this Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake, but you can make your own homemade if you'd like.
- You can use jam, jelly or preserves for the filling.
- Switch out the flavor of your filling, see some of my tips above.
- This can be frozen for up to 3 months.
- Adding the chopped peanuts to the top are optional but we like the crunch it provides this poke cake!
Nutrition
Tornadough Alli is not a nutritionist or dietitian, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and nutritional value is important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories and values can vary depending on which brands were used.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AUGUST, 2021
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