It’s Father’s Day tomorrow and if you get stuck for what to give as a gift, baking a cake always goes down well plus it shows you have put more effort into it rather than buying your Dad another tie, some slippers or whatever other gift that has a connection to this annual day. So what cake to bake, well seeing as the “Father in Law” likes Guinness and I had been finding an excuse to bake a chocolate Guinness cake, that I have oogled at in a Nigella cook book and another version of this recipe has made an appearance in the newest Hummingbird Bakery: Cake Days book. I have come up with a recipe that I tweaked a little. I decided to bake them as cupcakes and managed to get twelve of them PLUS a 6 inch cake out of the mix! So plenty for my dad and my better half’s dad too!!
You will need to gather together the following ingredients for the cake
250g Unsalted Butter, Softened to room temperature
200g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
100g Good Quality Dark Chocolate
2 Large Free Range Eggs
200ml Guinness
275g Self Raising Flour
30g Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
And for the Frosting on the top you will need
300g Full Fat Cream Cheese
150g Icing Sugar
125ml Double Cream
Method
Line a 12-Hole Muffin Tin with cupcake cases and grease and line a 6 inch cake tin.
I unfortunately only had 3 brown cupcake cases left so the rest had to be white!
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Beat the butter and sugar together until they are pale and fluffy. Melt the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, leave to cool a little then gradually beat the chocolate into the sugar and butter mix until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time until incorporated then gradually whisk in the Guinness until the batter is smooth (though don’t panic if it starts to look a little curdled at this point, when you add the dry ingredients it will return to a delightfully smooth consistency) Sift together the the flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda in a separate bowl then carefully fold it into the chocolate and Guinness mixture until well mixed and smooth. The batter should look like this:
Spoon a couple of teaspoons of the batter per cupcake case…
…and pop the remainder into the cake tin.
Bake the cup cakes for 20 minutes and the cake for 35-40 minutes until cooked through, a skewer should come out clean after inserting into the cakes.
Leave them to cool while you prepare the frosting. Beat the cream cheese and icing sugar together until completely mixed then add the double cream and beat until it becomes a spreadable consistency.
Top the cupcakes in any way that takes your fancy, I piped some smooth swirls on some with a plain piping nozzle. On the rest I used a pallet knife to spread the frosting in some different styles
I made some cake toppers using modelling chocolate and painted them with edible gold lustre dust…
…and popped them on top of the cupcakes
Then topped the Cake with the frosting. It resembles a glass of Guinness don’t you think?
And here are all the cakes together
I sampled some leftovers and I can’t say the the flavour if stout is prominent, though I think the chocolate flavour is somewhat strengthened so perhaps the Guinness brings out the flavour.
Why not have a go! If the concept scares you though you can always ask me to bake them for you!
Perfect for Father’s day, Grooms cake or any occasion!
