Just when we thought Guinness couldn’t be any more delicious—we discovered this chocolate Guinness cake.
Guinness is incredible, we all know that. It’s an incredibly versatile drink (just check out our list of five great cocktails that can be made with it here), but did you know you can also use Guinness to make a toothsome Guinness cake? Well, now you do!
Today we’re bringing you a mouth-wateringly delicious chocolate Guinness cake recipe; we’ve tried it ourselves and absolutely loved it. We’re going to go out on a limb and say even those who don’t like Guinness will enjoy this rich, moist cake.
Like what you’ve heard so far? Then read on for all the ingredients you’ll need, and steps on how to bake this Guinness beer cake.
What ingredients will you need?
To make this delectable, smooth, deep-flavoured cake, you’re going to need:
Cake
- 250ml Guinness stout
- 250g unsalted butter
- 75g cocoa powder
- 400g caster sugar
- One 142ml pot of sour cream
- Two eggs
- 1.5 tablespoon of vanilla extract
- 275g plain flour
- 2.5 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
Icing
- 200g of cream cheese
- 50ml of double cream
- 300g icing sugar (or as much as required for desired consistency)
A trip to your local supermarket should do the trick nicely!
Method
Okay, now for the tricky part—actually making the thing. Our first attempt was a little iffy, so don’t worry if yours doesn’t come out looking like something Nigella Lawson could whip up on a Sunday morning.
As long as it has a taste of the black stuff (Guinness), it’ll be good.
1. Preheat your oven to 180 °C (for fan-assisted ovens make it 170), or gas mark four. Butter—but only slightly—a 23cm push-base cake tin.
2. Now for the black stuff. Crack open a tin of Guinness and measure it out—make sure you let any foam dissolve—and pour it into a broad, deep saucepan. Proceed to cut the butter into small cube shapes before adding them to the pan. Heat until the butter is melted in said pan—take care to not let it boil. (We may have screwed this step up the first time, whoops.)
3. In another bowl, combine both the cocoa and sugar and whisk them into the butter/beer mixture. You’ll need to take care here to not to let the sugar catch and burn. It’s harder than it sounds…
4. Beat the eggs, vanilla extract, and sour cream together, then add all that good stuff to the main pan.
5. You’re going to need another fresh bowl for step five—combine the flour and bicarbonate of soda, and slowly whisk these ingredients into the pan, introducing only a little at a time. We say a little at a time because it’s very easy for the mixture to form lumps in the main pan, and we want to avoid that. No one wants a lumpy Guinness cake.
6. You with us so far? Okay, good. Now pour the delicious batter into your pan, and bake for around 40 to 45 minutes. We implore you to keep an eye (or both) on your oven at this stage—letting the cake bake any longer can burn it on the outside. You’ll know your cake is ready when a toothpick comes out of the centre clean.
7. While your scrumptious Guinness cake is baking, whip the double cream into the cream cheese and add your icing sugar, but only add it bit by bit. If you want to have a proper creamy Guinness head on your cake, you may need to use a little more icing sugar for this step.
8. Once the chocolate Guinness cake is thoroughly cooled, simply remove it from the tin and ice it with a spatula (or get fancy and use a piping bag). Some say that a silicone spatula allows for better control, but we’ll leave this up to you.
9. Dig in!
Perfect for St. Paddy’s
How better to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than by enjoying a slice of this lovely chocolate Guinness cake with some friends? Because seriously—we can’t imagine anything better.
If you fancy it, you could even pour yourself a pint (or two) of the black stuff to sip while enjoying this fantastic dessert. We don’t think it’s possible to get any more Irish than that, surely. Unless it’s served to you by a leprechaun? Anyway…
As we mentioned above, even those who aren’t fans of Guinness will enjoy this cake due to the Guinness not being the dominant flavour. So don’t be put off!
Instead, the black stuff just adds more depth to the magical, chocolaty goodness. It’s that delicious extra little ingredient that you might not be able to pick out, but it makes this dessert unique.
Let us know how your chocolate Guinness cake turns out by tagging us on social media!
