Chocolate Stout Cake with Irish Cream Frosting

A slice of this rich, chocolatey cake will make your day. And your week.

We’d like to interrupt this alleged “healthy cooking blog” with a brief boozy chocolate interlude. Have I grown fatigued, you might be wondering, of healthy cooking, what with all the treats aplenty being featured (and coming soon, too) on this blog?

Of course not. It’s just that there is so very much to be celebrating right now. For example–many birthdays! And there is nothing I love better than making someone a towering cake for their birthday.

Maybe you fellow lovers-of-baking can understand how much fun it is to prepare a cake for someone’s birthday–thumbing through recipes and casually inquiring as to the favourite flavours of the birthday girl or boy? Or maybe that’s just me, as yes, I really am that obsessive about baking. (I’m totally okay with that, by the way.)

This cake is really delicious. The stout gives it a richly flavoured, pleasantly toasty tinge, to even better highlight all that cocoa, and the Irish cream in the frosting is the perfect flavour accompaniment. I followed the original recipe as listed on epicurious, except for halving the frosting recipe, and flavouring the frosting with liquor.

This yields a HUGE cake–the three layers are all massive. I used two of the layers for the birthday party cake, and the halved ganache amount was plenty to frost it, and still have a leftover amount to top the final cake layer.

I’d recommend either planning to make a massive cake, or making a (still large) but more normal-sized cake and then making twelve cupcakes with the final amount.

The pictures of the final frosted cake are of the two-layered party cake, and then a few pics of the single layer with the leftover frosting on the top. (I don’t have pics of the sliced two-layered cake–didn’t want to run around the party snapping pics of people’s plates, funny enough).

Obviously, the frosting is the best part.

Chocolate Stout Cake with Irish Cream Frosting
from epicurious.com

The chocolate and beer play together perfectly in this cake to yield a rich chocolate flavour with a pleasant toasty edge. The Irish cream in the frosting gives it a boozy, over-the-top, celebratory punch. You could try different liquors, or leave it out entirely and keep the frosting simply pure chocolate and cream.

Ingredients Cake:
2 cups stout (such as Guinness; I used a chocolate stout)
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
4 cups all purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream

Irish Cream Frosting:
(this is half the ingredients from the original recipe, but I found it was plenty enough)
1 cup whipping cream
8 oz bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp Irish cream (optional; or try a different liquor)

MethodFor cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Butter three 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper. Butter paper.

Bring 2 cups stout and 2 cups butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.

Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. (Or, for a plenty-huge 2-layer cake, use two cake pans and divide the rest of the batter into a 12-muffin pan for cupcakes.)

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack and cool completely.

For icing:
Bring cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Add your tbsp of liquor and mix in.

Refrigerate until icing is spreadable, stirring frequently, about 2 hours.
Place 1 cake layer on plate. Spread about 1/2 cup icing over. Top with second cake layer. Spread with icing. If making a 3-layer cake, top with third cake layer. Spread remaining icing over top and sides of cake.

No nutrititional info–this is an over-the-top celebration cake and breaks all the rules.

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