St Patrick’s Day Guinness Chocolate Cake

I’ve always wanted to try a Guinness cake and I figured as a nod to my Irish heritage, St Paddy’s Day this Sunday was as good an excuse as any. This is Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe, except slightly different because I didn’t have any bicarbonate of soda so I switched to self-raising flour with baking powder instead. Also in her recipe the icing calls for cream cheese and double cream- I omitted the double cream, thinking it was just a tad too indulgent. It’s a bit weird as just a cream cheese frosting however, and I was thinking if I try this cake again what I’ll make instead is a whipped egg white American-style frosting to get the true ‘frothy pint’ look.

Ingredients

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

75g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

142ml sour cream

2 eggs

1tbsp vanilla extract

275g self-raising flour

2.5tsps of baking powder

For Icing

150g cream cheese

Lots of icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. Butter and line a 23cm inch round tin. (I only have a 20cm one which is why my cake is quite deep).

Gently heat the Guinness in a large saucepan, plopping several slices of the butter at a time into it until all of the butter has completely melted.

Add the sugar and cocoa directly to the saucepan (I measured them out first into a large mixing bowl), and whisk into the buttery Guinness using an electric hand-held whisk.

In a separate bowl lightly whisk the eggs, soured cream and vanilla extract together. 142ml is such a random amount as they tend to be sold in 150ml pots so I just plopped the whole lot in. I’m sure 8ml will not make an offensive difference to the cake.

Add the egg mixture to the saucepan and whisk everything together.

The final stage is to whisk in the flour and baking powder. My saucepan wasn’t big enough so I transferred the chocolaty mixture into a large mixing bowl and then whisked in the flour until smooth. The key tip here is to invest in a large saucepan.

Pour the mixture into your prepared tin, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until a skewer when inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool inside the tin, on a wire rack.

When the cake has completely cooled, removed it from the tin and place on a cake stand.

Gently beat the cream cheese, then sift the icing sugar and beat until smooth and thick. Smooth it all over the top of the cake, using the spatula to create gentle peaks like the top of a frothy pint of Guinness.

I would say enjoy with a pint of Guinness, except it really isn’t the same unless you’re in Ireland. (Seriously, it tastes different).