Low Sugar Peanut Butter Cake

I play Poker every Saturday night with my mom, sister and our families. Each week we take turns with the food. Someone will make the main dish, someone else the vegetables and the third will handle the dessert. Recently my mom had to really cut back on her sugar and we have really had a hard time finding low sugar dessert recipes that actually taste good. This started out as a peanut butter cake that I made with regular sugar and a brown sugar crumbly topping but after some serious tinkering I came up with this cake. It uses all low sugar ingredients and Splenda and turned out pretty darned good. I'm a little slower in the kitchen than most, so the prep times are how long it took ME to get things together, a better cook will probably take half that time. The preparation time also includes the one hour to chill.

• Ready In: 2 hrs 30 mins
• Serves: 18-24

Ingredients

• Cake

• 2 3⁄4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2  cups Splenda sugar substitute
• 1  teaspoon baking powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1  cup  no-sugar-added peanut butter
• 1⁄2 cup light butter, softened
• 4  eggs
• 1 3⁄4 cups skim milk
• 2  teaspoons vanilla
• 1  cup  semi-sweet chocolate chips

• Topping

• 1 (1 1/3ounce) box  cook n serve sugar-free instant chocolate pudding mix
• 2  cups skim milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Spray 13x9-inch cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Sift together dry ingredients onto a large sheet of tin foil.
4. In a large bowl, add peanut butter, eggs, milk , and vanilla Mix on medium speed until blended.
5. Gradually add flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture and mix at medium speed until both mixtures are thoroughly combined, about 2 to 3 minutes.
6. Add chocolate chips and mix by hand.
7. Pour into pan.
8. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
9. Set on wire rack to cool.
10. Using the handle of a large wooden spoon, poke 25-30 "pudding holes" into cake.
11. While cake continues to cool, start on topping.
12. For topping, heat 2 cups skim milk over medium heat until just hot, about 10 minutes-DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL.
13. Add pudding mix to milk and stir constantly with a wire whisk until pudding begins to boil.
14. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes, stirring twice.
15. Very slowly and gradually pour pudding over the cake making sure that pudding sinks into the "pudding holes.".
16. To prevent "skin" from forming on top of the pudding, immediately put plastic wrap over cake, placing it directly on the pudding (it will peel off fine without disturbing the pudding later).
17. Chill one hour before serving.
18. *Note-For thicker topping, use two 1.3 oz boxes of pudding and 4 cups of skim milk. Follow same instructions for preparing topping above.