Recipe: Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake

As a person of Irish heritage, I always feel a little treacherous admitting this, but honestly I don’t really like to drink Guinness. Still, once a year I do consume a bit of Guinness to celebrate St. Patrick's Day—not in a pint glass, but in Nigella Lawson’s dark, moist Chocolate Guinness Cake.

This cake couldn’t be easier to make—it’s a single layer with a crown of fluffy frosting, and you toss it all together on the stove top. The results are always delicious, moist but not overly dense, with that complex undertone of beery flavor. I make it every year on St. Paddy’s Day.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

From Feast by Nigella Lawson (reprinted in the New York Times on 12/8/04)
Yield: One 9-inch cake (12 servings)

For the cake:

Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar (I have used regular granulated sugar with no ill effects)
3/8 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the topping:

1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup heavy cream

For the cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

For the topping: Using a food processor or by hand, mix confectioners' sugar to break up lumps. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Add heavy cream, and mix until smooth and spreadable.

Remove cake from pan and place on a platter or cake stand. Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness.

(Images: Top image by Flickr member robbplusjessie, licensed under Creative Commons; and Susie Nadler for The Kitchn)

Comments (30)

Do you think it's really worth using a springform pan or could you get away with using a standard cake pan? I hate cleaning springforms.

Guinness tastes like carbonated soy sauce. Does the cake have that flavor as well?

The cake just has a bit of a yeasty flavour, but the chocolate really shines through. I just made this last night!
http://kitchengraffiti.blogspot.com/2009/03/chocolate-guiness-cake.html

heather, if that's how you think Guinness tastes than this might not be the cake for you. I don't like Guinness per se and can't drink more than a quarter pint, but I love this cake (though you can definitely taste the Guinness).

it would be fun to figure out how to serve this in pint glasses. :)

Hi everyone!

Tiamat_the_Red, I think you could definitely do this in a regular 9-in cake pan if you like. Just butter the pan generously and line with parchment (I usually butter the parchment too).

Heather77, the Guinness flavor in the cake is definitely there, but it's subtle, and it mixes nicely with the chocolate.

I agree about the pint glasses! Wonder how that could work....

- Susie

an alternative would be Tamasin Day Lewis' Bittersweet Chocolate Irish Whisky Cake...

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Bittersweet-Chocolate-Irish-Whiskey-Cake-238254

I made a Guinness chocolate cake for a friend's birthday this weekend, and it turned out *awesome*. I make a Bailey's Irish Cream whipped cream ... which was tasty but looked kinda gross. Thinking that adding about 4 tbsp of Bailey's to Nigella's topping might work well!

http://brandiphotos.blogspot.com/

I'll admit to totally cheating and using a boxed chocolate cake mix and substituting Guinness for the water in the recipe (i also decreased the amount of oil slightly). The results were still totally delicious. :)

We drank all our Guinness but I'm not going to wait a whole year to try this!

i just put this in the oven, but i was perplexed as to why i had so much more batter than could fit in my cake pan - granted, i'm not using a springform, so mine is probably shorter - but i decided to check the original recipe in the nytimes. it states that 3/8 cup of sour cream should be used, not 3/4 cup as stated here - please correct! i hope mine turns out okay. i ended up splitting the batter into two pans, and i'm hoping the one i started with doesn't overflow..

@bokeh, you are so right -- thank you! It's been corrected.

I found this blog after I Googled Nigella Lawson's chocolate Guinness cake after hearing her on NPR the other day. I was so excited to hear about this cake, as I love Guinness!
So, I made the recipe here, I used a regular 9 inch cake pan, and only filled it about two thirds full, with lots of batter left over. I used the rest in cupcake tins. Everything overflowed into my oven! What caused this? Was I supposed to let the beer get flat before using it?

I made this to RAVE reviews this week. Loved it!!! So easy, and so yummy! I had to give half away so I didn't eat it all. :)

I took the cake out at 45 min to test with A toothpick and the middle sank. I had to leave it in for one hour to finish. (I hope it's not dry.)
Is this normal?
I also used a chocolate stout, which is delish.
Thanks!

Think I could do this in a bundt?

I wanted to mention something about the superfine sugar vs regular sugar. There IS a difference in taste/consistency and I have to say I think they are much better with the superfine. There is more air in superfine sugar and therefore the cupcakes don't end up being quite as sweet as they are with regular sugar. I have now made these both ways and I'd recommend taking the extra time to use superfine. Extra time you ask? Yes! If you want to make superfine sugar at home it's, well, super easy - just blend a bunch of regular sugar up in the blender and use 2 cups of it once it's reached a powdery consistency (about 1-2mins). If you were to put two cups of regular sugar in the blender, you'd likely get almost 3 cups of superfine. That's my 2 cents!

My boyfriend is not the most excited when I start talking about making a cake and having a cup of tea but this cake was an absolute winner! It was almost the same as a divine cake we used to buy from our local Farmer's Market when we lived in London so that was a very happy thing to discover. Nigella's cake was super moist, chocolaty with an ever so slight Guiness taste, super easy to make and looks very impressive served up to guests. I did however have to make this twice before getting it right. For some reason the first time I made it, it came out with a beautiful texture but with a horribly bitter after taste. After doing a bit of internet research i decide to make sure I melted the butter in the Guiness over a super low heat and knocked off a teaspoon of bicarb soda which can apparently cause this type of after taste. It cooked even better the second time without rising up too high in the middle with only the 1.5 teaspoons of bicarb soda and I didn't use a spring form tin, instead buttering and flouring a regular tin and it slid out easily. I only used 125 mls of sour cream too as in the Netherlands where we now live the tub from the supermarket comes in that size and it wasn't really worth buying another tub just for a bit more. I cooked it on a fan setting at 180C and it only needed the 45 mins and it sank in the middle ever so slightly when it came out to create a perfectly flat top. I only had enough icing to make about 2/3 of Nigella's recommended amount and it was more than enough for the top. Last time with the full amount it was enough to ice the sides as well. Totally recommend making this cake!

I was going to lament about the awkward measurements (what the heck is a 3/8 cup???) until I saw kitchengraffiti put up the good old metric YAAAYYY! THANK YOU!

No fussing and no extra dishes to clean! *smooch*

Jen2, my mother has always said to never touch the oven door when baking a chocolate cake--or else it will collapse. This could have been your problem, especially if you're at a higher altitude.

Do you think you can replace Guiness with a different type of beer? Say Mexican beer for a Cinco de Mayo chocolate cake?

Mine is cooling on the counter right now. Collapsed in the middle, I was sad to see. Still, I got to taste a few of the crumbs and the chocolate and beer taste is really cool. Can't wait to serve this tonight....with strategic placement of extra frosting in the middle!

Heather77, I know this is a late reply; but I am making this cake again tonight. I love this cake for it's simple, chocolaty flavor. I am a fond imbiber of Guinness, but the amount in it provides a good amount of moisture but doesn't have the burnt stout flavor you (and many others) regard Guinness with. I take no offense, it is a taste I had to acquire.
Also, I don't let the mix cool after the egg/sour cream and keep it over the heat. By the time the flour/baking soda is added, it doesn't resemble a wet batter, but a half cooked mix of cake. I then put it all into the springform and it is very easy to work with. By the time 30 min. of baking has passed, it is done. It comes out the consistency of a brownie. It finishes as a not-so-sweet treat and I enjoy it with coffee (or a Guinness) :)

Sad or cakes that sank may be due to the chocolate used. Dutch processed cocoa is different from unsweetened cocoa and one needs baking powder and the other needs baking soda. Maybe that was the problem.

@Melester

I never knew there was a "scientific" difference between the two -- just looked it up. So interesting! Thanks for the heads up!

Does anyone know if its the Guinness stout from the nitrogen cans or the "Foreign Extra Stout" available in the bottles with the yellow labels?

RickM .. you could use either. You could actually use any variety of chocolate stout or even milk stout for this recipe. The point of it having guiness is for St Patricks Day, but any stout or even some porters would work.

I found a healthier but equally delicious version of this cake here: http://applepiefromscratch105.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/guinness-chocolate-cake-8/

Made this last night and it was great. The chocolate and the Guinness go great together. I'll do this one again.

This is an amazing recipe, but each time I make it, I do so with the following changes and it's always a big hit. Even if you don't want to incorporate all changes, even some make a nice difference:
1. Use a bundt pan instead of a springform, butter the pan heavily, and reduce the time to about 30-33 minutes (this makes a big difference in moistness, assuming you don't overcook the cake);
2. Add a pinch of cayenne in the batter: it doesn't make it spicy per se, but does add a bit of interest - people generally cannot guess what you've added;
3. Use another stout besides Guinness (although I'm a Guinness lover to the core, you're definitely better off using a more complex stout or porter - I like Rasputin or Ninkasi stout personally);
4. Consider substituting about 1/4 cup of coffee in place of some of the stout (coffee does something to bring out the chocolate and you don't miss the stout);
5. Decrease the granulated sugar in the batter significantly (while I like sweet, the cake is far better and more dynamic with about 1 1/2 cups instead of 2);
6. Decrease the powdered sugar in the frosting dramatically (I find 3/4 cup is enough- see above regarding the sugar in the batter).

Finally, of course, enjoy! This is a truly fabulous recipe!