👻Tall, Dark and Delicious🎃
☠️💀☠️
Here’s a recipe for every Chocolate lovers dream come true🍫🍻. The addition of a dark, rich, stout gives the cake a undefined but deliciously sour hint that’s divine. Better yet, you can put it together in no time. This is Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe, that’s been ever so barely tweaked. I’m naming this version Chocolate Stout Cake. See how clever I am?
I love Nigella Lawson. Seriously, she can boil water and I’m going to pull up a chair and watch her make it. The only thing I could ever do to improve her recipe is to translate it from English-English to American-English😉🤣. Nigella writes her recipes the same way she talks, and it can be a little (as the “brits” say) “daunting” to understand, but if you’re a fan like I am, when you read her recipe you can literally, hear her talking. I love that too! Isn’t that why we all love a British accent?
This cake is so good and chocolatey and dense. It’s easy to make and everyone will love it! But I have to confess, I decided upon this particular cake because I wanted to decorate it for Halloween. I love the Jack Skellington face and this cake is a perfect canvas for my Halloween cake decorating attempt. But, you can make this for any get together. You don’t need to ice it either, but dang, the icing is beyond delicious too! This is the kind of cake you can throw together but it comes out looking perfect.
Happy Halloween, my friends! Boo!
The Cake
Preheat oven to 350° Line a 9 inch springform pan with parchment and butter the paper and pan generously. Set aside.
Into a medium-sized sauce pan, melt 1 cup of butter with 1 cup of dark, chocolate or coffee stout 🍺. I used “Modern Times” Nitro, City of The Dead Beer. It was perfect for this cake, but any will work. The beer actually is not detectable, just the little bitterness that adds a lot of flavor.
In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 cup of granulated sugar and 3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder. Next, into another bowl, add 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt. In yet another bowl, mix together 1 cup sour cream, 2 large eggs and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, and mix well.
Whisk the sugar and cocoa into the melted butter and warm beer. (Talk about the ultimate Harry Potter Butter Beer experience, right?) Add the egg mixture into the chocolate, whisking to combine, then add the flour and whisk to combine. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 45-60 minutes. The cake is done when the center is set. Let it cool completely in the springform pan. When cooled, release the sides. Chill cake while you make the frosting.
The Frosting
Into the bowl of your mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, add 8 ounces of room temperature cream cheese. Whip the cream cheese until it’s light. Turn off the mixer and add 1 cup confectioners sugar, a pinch of salt, 2 teaspoons of cornstarch and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whip again, about 1 minutes. Next, in a separate bowl, whip 1/2 cup of heavy cream or whipping cream to soft fold. Then add that to the bowl and whip again until the consistency is right for icing, about 2 minutes.
Decorating
Make it super simple and only ice the top of the cake, or do the whole thing.
Chocolate Stout Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 1 cup stout beer
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
For the Icing
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° Line a 9 inch spring form pan with parchment and butter the paper and pan generously. Set aside.
- Into a medium sized sauce pan, melt 1 cup of butter with 1 cup of dark, chocolate or coffee stout. I used Modern Times Nitro, City of The Dead Beer. It was perfect for this cake, but any will work. The beer actually is not detectable, just the little bitterness that adds a lot of flavor.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 cup of granulated sugar and 3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder. Next, into another bowl, add 2 cups all purpose flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt. In yet another bowl, mix together 1 cup sour cream, 2 large eggs and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, and mix well.
- Whisk the sugar and cocoa into the melted butter and warm beer. Talk about the ultimate Butter Beer experience, right? Add the egg mixture into the chocolate, whisking to combine, then add the flour and whisk to combine. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 45-60 minutes. The cake is done when the center is set. Let it cool completely in the spring form pan. When cooled, release the sides. Chill cake while you make the frosting.
The Frosting
- Into the bowl of your mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, add 8 ounces of room temperature cream cheese. Whip the cream cheese until it's light. Turn off the mixer and add 1 cup confectioners sugar, a pinch of salt, 2 teaspoons of cornstarch and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whip again, about 1 minutes. Next, in a separate bowl, whip 1/2 cup of heavy cream or whipping cream to soft fold. Then add that to the bowl and whip again until the consistency is right for icing, about 2 minutes.
Decorating
- Make it super simple and only ice the top of the cake, or do the whole thing.
Very minimally adapted from Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake by Karen Harris https://www.bittersaltysoursweet.com
