chocolate guinness cake
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chocolate guinness cake

Beer and chocolate should be all wrong together, but in this recipe they somehow work. As Nigella says, this cake has a "resonant, ferrous tang" and is absolutely delicious with ginger ice cream...or if you're feeling especially beer-oriented, with Guinness Stout Ice Cream.

ingredients:

  250ml Guinness
  1 cup butter
  75g cocoa
  400g caster sugar
  140ml sour cream
  2 eggs
  1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  275g plain flour
  2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
 
  Icing:
  300g cream cheese
  150g icing sugar
  125ml heavy cream
  1 heaping tablespoon Les Perles Valrhona chocolate drops

directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/355F, and grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

2. Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan, and add the sliced butter. Heat until the butter is melted, and remove the saucepan from the heat. Whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, then pour into the saucepan. Finally, beat in the flour and baking soda.

3. Pour the batter into the greased and lined tin, and bake for 45 mins to an hour. Leave to completely cool in the tin - it is quite a damp cake.

4. For the icing, beat the icing sugar and cream cheese together. Add the cream, and beat again until it's a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake until it resembles the frothy top of a pint of Guinness, topping with chocolate drops to resemble bubbles.

after-thoughts:

I would imagine that were you so inclined, you could make this cake with root beer or ginger ale...but why mess with perfection?

recipe origin: From Nigella Lawson's Feast