guinness cake

As a fan of not-too-sweet desserts, my interest was especially piqued by this recipe from Nigella's website.

However, this recipe uses a lot of sugar and, well, Nigella's version is in metric measurements, so let's just say I took some liberties with this recipe. I've converted the recipe into standard US measurements but the changes I made are as followed and NOT included in the recipe below:

-brown sugar instead of white
-more guinness, less cocoa
-less sugar in the cream cheese icing

Now you hungry Americans, here's Nigella's recipe (rounded):

CAKE:
1 cup Guinness
2 sticks of butter
2/3 cup cocoa
3.5 cups sugar
5 oz sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2.5 tsp baking soda

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
10-11 oz cream cheese
1.25 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven at 350, butter your springform pan. Pour the Guinness into a wide saucepan and add the butter in slices until melted. Whisk in cocoa and sugar. In a large bowl, mix together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Pour the beer mixture in the bowl and whisk together with the flour and baking soda. Pour the batter in the pan and bake for 45 minutes. Cool completely.

Lightly whip the cream cheese to soften, then continue to whip with confectioners' sugar and heavy cream until it's spreadable. Frost to add the foam on top of the "pint" of Guinness! Clever Nigella.


dark, dense, a tad bitter and completely delicious.