Guinness Chocolate Cake

Another foray into the world of cooking-with-Guinness-stout. This recipe comes from my fellow Melbourne blogger, Esther, who mentioned it when she saw the post about my stout, treacle and pear cake a few weeks ago. As luck would have it, when I bought my Cooper's Stout for that cake, I also bought a bottle of Guinness 'just in case'. So, when I decided it was time to try out my two new 1/2 size cake tins, I knew this would be the recipe I would try.
I love these 1/2 size cake tins. They take half a standard cake mix, which is great for me because I love making cakes, but don't love having lots of leftover cake hanging around tempting me. I try to pass off as much as possible, with certain success, but when A told me recently "I can't eat as much cake as you give me!" I knew it was time to do something about this baking issue. I bought a tin in the shape you see above, and I also bought a small flexible silicone mould to try. Both have been excellent, and the silicone mould surprised me by being more of a success than I'd been led to believe.

The raw batter for this cake tastes bloody AWESOME! The Guinness really comes through strongly and complements the chocolate. It was wonderful stuff. The taste wasn't so pronounced when baked, but there was certainly a taste of malt and that tang you get with stout. I decorated it with some funny 'chocolate' sprinkles we can get here (I sincerely doubt the sprinkles have ever seen any form of cocoa bean) and dusted it with some of my new golden lustre powder to make it glamorous and dressy for evening.
Read on for the recipe:



Chocolate Guinness Cake
Recipe & text courtesy of Esther

Makes 1 standard-size cake or 2 1/2 size ones.

175g plain flour
a pinch of baking powder
1 tsp bicarb (baking soda)
110g butter
250g dark brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten up
200ml Guinness (or another stout)
55g cocoa
200gm dark chocolate
1/2 cup cream
1 extra tbsp butter

Line your cake tin well with some spare paper and preheat your oven to 180C.
You need three bowls.
In the first one sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb.
In a biggish one cream the butter, sugar and eggs.
In the third bowl mix together the Guinness and cocoa – don’t beat it too much as you want the Guinness to stay bubbly.
Now mix all three bowls together, adding them alternately to the biggest bowl. Stir it as little as possible.
Pour it into your tin and wack it in the oven. It should take 45min until it’s not gooey in the middle.
Leave it to cool for a bit and prepare the icing: in a double boiler melt the chocolate, add the cream and extra butter. Pour this chocolatey goodness all over the cake. It will set a bit as it cools but it’s good wet too.
Top with strawberries or kiwi slices or something for true fanciness.