October 24, 2008

favorite chocolate cake


Nigella Lawson's (I know, her again - but she's just so lovely and British) Chocolate Guinness Cake has become my family's go-to chocolate cake as of late. My dad and my sister and I get particularly excited about it. I think the feature we're all so mad about with this cake is that it's not overly sweet like some desserts, but has a pleasant tang from the stout.

Also, we love cream cheese.




Chocolate Guinness Cake
Feast
Nigella Lawson


For the cake

1 cup Guiness
1 stick plus 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda


For the topping

8 oz. cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and line a 9" springform pan.
(I don't bother trying to line a round pan with parchment, so I generally butter and then dust with cocoa powder, nothing bad has happened yet.)

Pour Guiness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter in pats, and heat until the butter's melted. Whisk in cocoa and sugar.

Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, pour mixture into pan with beer mixture. Whisk in flour and baking soda.

Pour the cake batter into greased springform pan and bake for 45 minutes to and hour. Leave to cool completely in pan on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cold make the frosting.

Whip cream cheese until smooth. Sift over the powdered sugar and then beat both together. Add the cream and beat until frosting is a spreadable consistancy.

Ice the cake to resemble a frothy pint of Guiness.


Also - I'll be making some animals for the Bizarre Market in Richmond this year, so stay tuned.




2 comments:

Art Nest said...

Yumm! My secret (Well, actually, it's Ina Garten's secret) to chocolate cake is putting coffee in the batter!

the fabled needle (jen) said...

wow, guinness + chocolate - never would have thought of it! but there is such a thing as chocolate stout so it makes sense.