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.
Recipe: Nigella Lawson's 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
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar (I have used regular granulated sugar with no ill effects)
3/4 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.
Related:
• The Thirsty Reader: A Guinness Milkshake
• David Lebovitz’ Guinness-Milk Chocolate Ice Cream
• Recipe: Vegetarian Guinness Stew
(Images: Top image by Flickr member robbplusjessie, licensed under Creative Commons; and Susie Nadler for The Kitchn)
Tags
St. Patrick's Day, Baked Good, Nigella Lawson, guinness, cream cheese frosting, single layer cakeRelated Links
- Recipe: Roasted Baby Cabbage
- Recipe: My Mother's Irish Soda Bread
- Recipe: Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
- Recipe: Vegetarian Guinness Stew
- Recipe: Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake
Share
Comments (11)
Weekly Email
Top Posts
Top Recipes
- Lobster to Sweet & Sour: How To Make 6 Stir-Fry Sauces
- Recipe: Baked Persimmons
- Weeknight Dinner: Quick Udon Noodle Soup
- Appetizer Recipe: Bacon-Wrapped Potato Bites with Spicy Sour Cream Dipping Sauce
- Old-Fashioned Breakfast: Biscuits with Milk and Sugar
Top Tours
- Daniel's Cure-Inspired Project
- Kitchen Gallery: White, Bright, and Clean
- Kitchen Spotlight: San Francisco Sleek Yet Vintage Re-Do
- Jean Greenfield's Kitchen And Garden In San Anselmo
- Tamar's Labor of Love Renovation
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
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.
view Tiamat_the_Red's profile
Guinness tastes like carbonated soy sauce. Does the cake have that flavor as well?
view heather77's profile
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
view kitchengraffiti's profile
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).
view Squirrely's profile
it would be fun to figure out how to serve this in pint glasses. :)
view thinkingwoman's profile
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
view susiekn's profile
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
view mschatelaine's profile
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/
view rebelle's profile
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. :)
view jkpenny's profile
We drank all our Guinness but I'm not going to wait a whole year to try this!
view cmcinnyc's profile
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..
view bokeh's profile