Guinness Chocolate Cake

Culinary

An alternative Irish Christmas cake - Guinness chocolate cake recipe

A scrumptious alternative to the traditional Irish Christmas cake - Chocolate Guinness cake

If you’re like me, the traditional fruit cake, layered in marzipan and thick, hard, white icing is about as appetizing as cold noodle soup. So here’s a perfect alternative that all the family will love.

Warning: The likelihood of there being leftovers of these cake are nil!
Ingredients:

• 1 cup/half a pint (250ml) Guinness
• 1 cup (250g) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup (75g) cocoa
• 3 1/3 cups (400g) caster sugar
• 2/3 cup (142ml) sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp real vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cup (275g) plain flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/3 cup (300g) Philadelphia cream cheese
• 1/2 cup (125ml) double or whipping cream
• Method:
  Preheat the oven to 350°F/gas mark 4 (180°C), and butter and line a 9 inch (23cm) spring-form tin.
  
  Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter’s melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
  Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarbonate of soda.
  Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
  
  When the cake’s cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. You could also do this in a processor, putting the unsieved icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
  Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.
  Source: www.florencefinds.com.