Celebrate St. Patrick’s day with this indulgent and moist Chocolate Guinness Cake with a luscious cream cheese icing
For the love of chocolate cake
Something magical happens when you mix wine, spirits or any sort of alcohol with food. Booze adds complexity, depth and flavour in many dishes. Like in Rum Raisin Brownies or in this classic French stew Coq au Vin. Today, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, so there’s no better time to break out an Irish stout beer!
Say hello to this very sinful Chocolate Guinness Cake! It’s absolutely not calorie friendly, but every single crumb will be worth it. I slightly adapted the recipe from the wonderful Nigella Lawson. I’ve just changed a couple of ingredients and converted her weight measurements into the closest cups measurements.
Before you tell me, yes, I know weighing all the ingredients promises the best results when baking. However, if I were to do this every single time, I would hardly bake because I’m a lazy cook.
Weighing the cake may have produced a perfect cake, but OH MY, this version is still bloody incredible. Can I finally use that cringe-worthy word, DELECTABLE? because it truly is. When I had this cake, I was truly experiencing a deep and meaningful FOODGASM. Did I just say that? OMG using all these words that I would usually roll my eyes at. Look what this cake made me do!
It’s been a long time since a basic chocolate cake has wowed me. When I mean by ‘basic’ is that this batter contains no actual melted chocolate, just cocoa powder. It’s also incredibly easy to make, no stand mixer needed here! Be prepared to get ultra excited by the deep dark chocolate colour when you cut your first slice. Not only the visual is stunning, but the texture and taste of this cake is mind blowing. If I dare say it, this cake is PURE perfection.
The Guinness complements the cake so beautifully, the malty bitterness of the stout is balanced out by the sweetness of the cake. This cake is soft and moist, indulgent and just melts in your mouth. It’s so divine that you could serve this cake with a simple dusting of icing sugar, but it tastes even better with Nigella’s whipped cream cheese icing.
Never take a toddler into a bottle-o!
Sometime last year, my husband, Tomasi, showed me a news article. An angry mum was explaining how humiliated she felt because Audi declined to sell her a bottle of wine because she had her baby with her.
Since reading that article, I have avoided going to the bottle-o with Kai, my 2-year-old. That was until a few days ago when I needed to pick up a bottle of Guinness for this recipe.
Every time I go grocery shopping, I have to bribe Kai with a lollypop so he would sit still in the baby seat in the trolley. Please don’t judge because that’s the only way I’m able to control him! He refuses to sit in the trolley otherwise, and when he’s free, he is a nightmare. He would run with my trolley and crash into everything. Then, like a professional basketball player, he would slam-dunk random groceries in the trolley and scream out ‘Yay! Yay!’
After our shopping, I wheeled him into our bottle-o. Already feeling paranoid, I tried to be as fast as possible, but just to my luck, there were no bottles or cans of Guinness in sight. Kai got excited when we were near the fridges, as he loves playing with doors. ‘MUM! MUM! GET IT! DRINK DRINK DRINK!’ he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Lucky for me, at that time no one was around so I just told him to ssh and kept looking around. I finally found a large 750ml bottle that was available. As I went to put the bottle on the counter, Kai pointed to the bottle and shouted, ‘MUM DRINK IT! DRINK IT!’. The man and I stared at each other awkwardly before I blurted out in my defence, ‘It’s for cooking’ before dashing out. Great, my toddler is spreading false rumours that I’m an alcoholic.
Ingredients for Chocolate Guinness Cake
Guinness original is an Irish dry stout beer. It’s dark, a little thick with bitter and strong malty flavours. It’s perfect to add to chocolate desserts and hearty stews. To use, pour the Guinness slowly against the edge of the measuring cup/jug. This way, you’ll avoid having lots of foam.
Plain flour (all-purpose flour) does not contain any leavening agents.
Caster sugar (superfine sugar) – Caster sugar has finer granules than regular white sugar. However, it’s not the same as icing/powdered sugar. Many baking or candy recipes call for caster sugar as it dissolves faster and better into mixtures. If you can’t find caster sugar, you can make your own by placing regular sugar in a food processor or blender. Pulse the sugar a few times until it looks finer, but don’t over-blitz to a powder consistency. Or, just use equal amounts of regular white sugar.
Thickened cream (whipping cream) has gelatine added to it and contains 35% milk fat. I don’t recommend using low-fat cream because it may not whip up well and be a little runny.
Icing sugar (powdered sugar, confectionary sugar) – Icing sugar usually comes in two forms: icing sugar mixture and pure icing sugar. Icing sugar mixture is softer than pure icing sugar because there’s starch or flour added to it. For this recipe, I prefer using icing sugar mixture because the starch helps stabilise the whipped cream.
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How to make Chocolate Guinness Cake
Step-by-step guide with photos
Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F) or 160°C (320°F) for fan-forced ovens.
For the Guinness mixture – Place the butter and Guinness in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter has melted completely, but don’t let the mixture simmer or boil. Remove saucepan from heat and allow the mixture to cool down for 15 minutes. This is important because we’ll be mixing this mixture with the eggs so we don’t want to cook the eggs.
Whilst waiting for the Guinness mixture to cool down, prepare the cake tin. Grease the sides and base of a 23cm (9in) round baking tin with a loose base. Line the base with baking/parchment paper.
For the dry ingredients – Sift the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and bi-carb soda into a large bowl. Whisk the ingredients together until combined.
In a large separate bowl, place in the eggs, sour cream, vanilla extract and whisk. Then add in the Guinness mixture and whisk to combine until smooth.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, then pour in the wet ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and tap it gently against the bench a few times. Bake in the middle of the oven for one hour or until a skewer comes out of the cake clean when inserted in the middle. Cool the cake in its tin on a cooling rack until the cake is cool to touch.
Let’s eat cake
Once the cake has completely cooled down, make the cream cheese frosting. In a small bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. In a separate bowl, place in the cream cheese, vanilla extract and whisk for 2 minutes on high speed. Sift in the icing sugar and cornstarch into the cream cheese mixture and whisk further for 3 minutes. Place two tablespoons of the cream cheese mixture into the whipped cream and whisk until combined, then fold in the remaining. Place the frosting over the cake and use a spatula to spread it over the cake. Optional – sprinkle with green decorations for St. Patrick’s Day.
Leftovers – Transfer the Chocolate Guinness Cake into an airtight container and refrigerate. It’ll be good for up to 5 days. It tastes like a chocolate mud cake when eaten cold. If you prefer a softer cake, leave the cake at room temperature for 20 minutes or so, before serving.
If you love baking, try out this gorgeous Victoria Sponge Cake with Fresh Cherries made with Japanese-style sponge cake or this stunning Persian Love Cake
A Third-Party Application calculated the calories and nutritional information. Please use this as an approximate guide only.
Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements.
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Cheers (I’ll drink to that) – Cat Tre
Chocolate Guinness Cake with Cream Cheese
Ingredients
- 250 gm butter (chopped roughly)
- 1 cup Guinness (original 250ml/8.8floz) (NOTE 1)
- 2 cups plain flour (all-purpose flour) (NOTE 2)
- ¾ cup cocoa powder (unsweetened, good quality)
- 1¾ cup caster sugar (or regular white sugar) (NOTE 3)
- 2½ tsp bicarbonate soda (baking soda)
- ½ cup sour cream (whole fat)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
FROSTING
- ½ cup thickened cream (NOTE 4)
- 250 gm cream cheese (softened at room temperature)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar) (NOTE 5)
- 2 tsp cornstarch (or cornflour)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F) or 160°C (320°F) for fan-forced ovens. For the Guinness mixture – Place the butter and Guinness in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter has melted completely, but don't let the mixture simmer or boil. Remove saucepan from heat and allow the mixture to cool down for 15 minutes. This is important because we'll be mixing this mixture with the eggs so we don't want to cook the eggs.
- Whilst waiting for the Guinness mixture to cool down, prepare the cake tin. Grease the sides and base of a 23cm (9in) round baking tin with a loose base. Line the base with baking/parchment paper.
- For the dry ingredients – Sift the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and bi-carb soda into a large bowl. Whisk the ingredients together until combined.
- In a large separate bowl, place in the eggs, sour cream, vanilla extract and whisk. Then add in the Guinness mixture and whisk to combine until smooth.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients, then pour in the wet ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and tap it gently against the bench a few times. Bake in the middle of the oven for one hour or until a skewer comes out of the cake clean when inserted in the middle. Cool the cake in its tin on a cooling rack until the cake is cool to touch.
- Once the cake has completely cooled down, make the cream cheese frosting. In a small bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. In a separate bowl, place in the cream cheese, vanilla extract and whisk for 2 minutes on high speed. Sift in the icing sugar and cornstarch into the cream cheese mixture and whisk further for 3 minutes. Place two tablespoons of the cream cheese mixture into the whipped cream and whisk until combined, then fold in the remaining. Place the frosting over the cake and use a spatula to spread it over the cake. Optional – sprinkle with green decorations for St. Patrick's Day.
