Valentine day eve and I am finally sitting down with a cup of peppermint tea. What a busy week we have had! My daughter caught the chickenpox last Thursday so we have spent the week tied up at home nursing her back to health.
I love valentines day, actually I don’t think there is a holiday I don’t like 🙂 one day of the year we take out of our busy lives to show that loved one how much we love them. And there is always is a delicious meal involved!
My valentines baking this year is a Chocolate Guinness Cake. A friend gave me this recipe after baking it for me when I came home from hospital with my new born daughter. I fell in love with its dense chocolatey flavour and light cream cheese frosting. The Guinness enriches the chocolate flavour without giving a stout taste. The recipe calls for baking just one layer of cake but I prefer dividing the mixture between two 9″ baking tins an sandwiching the layers with the frosting, that way you get a more even ratio of cake to frosting!
Chocolate Guinness Cake
For the Cake
- 250ml Guinness
- 250g unsalted butter
- 80g Cocoa powder
- 400g Caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 140ml Buttermilk
- 280g Plain Flour
- 2tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- ½ tsp Baking Powder
For the Frosting
- 50g Softened unsalted butter
- 125g full fat cream cheese
- 300g Icing Sugar
- Cocoa Powder for dusting.
Method
- Grease and line the base of two 9 inch cake tins.
- Preheat the oven to 170C .
- Pour the Guinness into a saucepan and then add the butter and heat gently until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat and add the cocoa powder and sugar into the warm mixture.
- In a bowl, mix the buttermilk, vanilla essence, and eggs together. Add this to the mixture in the saucepan.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a mixer or hand held whisk. Mix on a low speed and add the mixture from the pan. Mix thoroughly until all of the ingredients are incorporated.
- Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for approx 30 minutes.
- The cake will be baked when the sponge bounces back when pressed lightly and a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool down, remove from the tin onto a wire rack and set aside until it has completely cooled down before adding any frosting.
- To make the frosting, using a mixer or hand held whisk, mix the butter and icing sugar together until it is fully combined and smooth. Add the cream cheese and mix on a medium speed until light and fluffy.
- Once cooled place one of the cake layers on a serving plate and cover with half the frosting, place the second layer on top and spread the remaining frosting on top.
Happy baking,
Bácáil with Love (Bake with Love)