St Paddy's Day - Chocolate Guinness Cake

St Paddy's day isn't widely celebrated in South Africa; well, other than university students who will welcome any excuse for a party. Nonetheless, being of Irish descent, I felt like I couldn't let this opportunity to do some baking pass up.

A while ago I made this cake and it was just so delicious and moist. The cream cheese frosting perfectly complements the richness of the Guinness and the chocolate.

I used this same recipe for the cupcakes in my Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. The recipe is from The Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days. One batch of batter will make either one 23 cm cake or 24 cupcakes. Be warned: the batter looks really runny and disastrous before it goes in the oven. Don't panic! It turns out great!

Chocolate Guinness Cake

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

80g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla essence

140ml buttermilk

280g plain flour

2tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2tsp baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 170⁰C and line the base of the tin with baking paper
2. Pour the Guinness into a saucepan, add the butter and gently heat until it has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the cocoa powder and sugar into the warm liquid.
3. Mix together the eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk by hand in a jug or a bowl. Add this to the mixture in the pan
4. Sift together the remaining ingredients into a large bowl. With your mixer on a low speed, add the contents of the pan.
5. Mix thoroughly until all of the ingredients are incorporated. Remember to scrape down the sides of your bowl from time to time.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Set aside to cool and then remove from the tin to cool on a wire rack. Make sure the cake is cold to the touch before icing it.

Cream Cheese Icing

50g unsalted butter, softened

300g icing sugar

125g cream cheese

Cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

1. Mix the butter and the icing sugar together until there are no large lumps of butter and the mixture has a sandy texture.
2. Add the cream cheese and mix on a low speed, increasing to a medium speed and mixing until the icing is light and fluffly

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