What culture does chocolate cake peanutbutter icing come from?

Answer 1

There are a number of people credited with inventing peanut butter, but Dr. John Kellogg of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan and his brother W.K. Kellogg were the first to patent the process for producing peanut butter in 1895. Dr. Kellogg considered peanut butter to be a good source of protein for patients at the sanitarium that he was trying to convince to become vegetarians.

One of Kellogg's employees, a Joseph Lambert, made the grinders to make the peanut butter and established the Lambert Food Company. His wife, Almeeta Lambert, likely in an effort to popularize her husband's products, published a cookbook using peanut butter recipes called "The Complete Guide to Nut Cookery" in 1899. I have been unable to find a copy of this cookbook, so I can't say if she had a peanut butter frosting recipe in it, but I have no doubt that peanut butter frosting wasn't far behind the production and distribution of peanut butter and peanut butter recipes.

Unable to make a long story short, I will summarize by answering that peanut butter frosting (for any type of cake) is more than likely a product of American culture from at or shortly after the start of the twentieth century. If there is better information from substantiated evidence, please add it here!