I have noticed some great looking recipes for Beer Bread in blogland lately and of course I thought: beer bread is good but beer cake would suit me even better!! This recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake is from Nigella Lawson's Feast: Food to Celebrate Life cook book. Feast is loaded with scrumptious recipes for every season and celebration you can imagine. If you are a baker and chocolate lover the "Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame" section alone is worth owning this book. This cake has a wonderful intense chocolate flavor, though it is not overly sweet. It is a substantial cake; dense, moist and will serve about 10-12 nicely. Another nice thing about this cake is how quickly you can make it. The thick cream cheese frosting is over the top goodness. If there is one new cake recipe you make this month be sure to make this one! I think you will agree it's a keeper!
For the Cake:
1 cup Guinness
1 stick plus 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. pure vanilla extract
2 cups AP flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 inch springform pan and line with parchment.
Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan, add the sliced butter and heat until the butter is melted.
Whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
Beat the sour cream, eggs and vanilla...
...and pour into the saucepan.
Add the flour and baking soda, whisking to combine.
Pour the batter into the greased and lined pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack. ( I used an 8 inch pan and baked it for exactly one hour so I would expect that 45-50 minutes would be just about right for a 9 inch pan. I like to take my cakes out of the oven when the tester inserted into the middle comes out with a little moist crumb on it, this way they are nice and moist and will not be overbaked.)
It's hard to tell from the picture but the cake has a lovely shiny patina and is gorgeous on its own, but if you like you can include the cream cheese frosting:
Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth. Sift over the confectioner's sugar. Beat them together. Add the cream and beat until it becomes a fluffy spreadable consistency. Ice the cake to resemble the frothy top of a Guinness.
The month of March is a swell time for a Guinness Cake! Bon appetit!!
That looks SO good. I think my husband would like it for no reason other than I would need to bring home Guinness.
Posted by: barbara | March 04, 2009 at 05:33 PM
What I would give to be sitting at the kitchen table with you eating a slice of that cake! YUM.
Posted by: laurie - magpie ethel | March 04, 2009 at 07:18 PM
Beer Cake, yum! I make beer bread, but didn't know you could put beer in a cake! Ha, now if only a beer would taste good while eating the cake. I don't think so.
Posted by: Mermaid Debbie | March 07, 2009 at 02:19 PM
Boy Kim, That looks lucious! I'll have to try that. I make beer bread and it's delicious, so I can only imagine how good the cake is. Yummy!
Posted by: Jean Tuthill | March 07, 2009 at 05:12 PM
You are my type of girl! :)
Posted by: Laura Ingalls Gunn | March 07, 2009 at 05:51 PM
Hello sweetie! Stacey and I made the cake. We did it! It was so good! The texture is so good. Kind of dense and ....... wet? It holds up really well in the frig too. I had some tonight and it was just as good as the first night and today is day three. It slices so perfectly too. Now, what the heck do I do with 5 more bottles of guiness? Hmmm, beer bread? More cake? Oh my! Thank you for the inspiration! xoxo Auntie
Posted by: Auntie Lynn | March 09, 2009 at 10:32 PM
Auntie Lynn- indeed, this is a very wet cake! (Auntie Lynn does not like the word moist!) I am so glad you made it! Extra Guinness, well I would have made more cake with mine but dear husband enjoyed drinking them before I could bake another cake! xoxo, Kimmie
Posted by: Kim G. | March 10, 2009 at 01:38 PM