Chocolate and guinness cake



the last slice!

 I made this in honour of a friend who was leaving work recently and it went down a treat! Although the thought of adding Guinness to a cake put me off a little at first, and really, the mixture doesn’t look very pleasant at the butter melting stage, it doesn’t make the cake taste of beer at all. It just adds a rich tangy flavour to the chocolate and enhances it perfectly.
The cream cheese icing is to die for. I could eat a whole bowl on its own if I’m honest!

Ingredients
Cake:

• 400gms caster sugar
• 250gms butter
• 75gms cocoa powder
• 275gms self raising flour
• 2 eggs
• 250ml Guinness (there is 440ml in can- don’t use all of it!)
• 2tsp baking powder
• 2tsp vanilla essence
• 142ml (small pot) sour cream

Icing:

• 150gm icing sugar
• 300gm (1 pot) philadelphia cream cheese
• 125ml double cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade. Grease and lightly flour a deep 8inch cake tin.
2. Put the butter and Guinness into a saucepan and heat gently until the butter is melted. Put this aside to cool for a few minutes (it will look a bit gross at this stage but bear with me).
3. In a bowl or a food processor, mix together the sugar and cocoa then slowly pour in the butter/beer mixture and sour cream and beat well.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time then fold in the flour, baking powder and vanilla essence.
5. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and place in the oven. Bake for 15mins then turn the heat down to 150 degrees centigrade and bake for 1- 1½ hours. Check after an hour by poking a knife into the centre. If the knife comes out clean its ready. If there is still uncooked batter on it, return the cake to the oven for a bit longer.
6. When cooked turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.
7. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the cream and cream cheese until it is fluffy and looks like American style cake frosting (approx 2-3 mins). Add the sugar and mix well.
8. When the cake has cooled, top with the icing (it should look a bit like a pint of Guinness) and serve.