Left Over Guinness ... Another Beautiful Cake

So ... what did you do with your leftover Guinness stout after toasting the Emerald Isle, knoshing your corned beef and cabbage, blathering on about past St Patrick's Day escapades, and listening to the rowdy leprechauns partying next door?

What no parties in your vicinity? Well, there were a few in Sprout Sara's Boston neighborhood! After a walking tour of Back Bay and a jaunt up through the Public Gardens and Boston Common, we ambled back to her apartment where the corned beef was smellin' up the place in a good way! Beers, Irish Cheddar and Yancey's Fancy Horseradish Cheddar with crackers and music ... listening to crowds of rowdy leprechauns sing their way up one side of Beacon Hill and down the other, and lounging around chatting and laughing until the potatoes and cabbage were perfect ... yup. That was our St Paddy's Day! When that corned beef was perfect we fell on it like ravenous wolves! Oh what a decadent party!

Sara asked me, at one point, where the Guinness Cake was and I had to admit that I ran out of time on Saturday morning. I'd spent all day Friday and part of Saturday baking Irish Soda Breads and Yeast Rolls for the little church's Corned Beef Supper fundraiser. I got out of it with one loaf of Irish Soda Bread with Raisins and Drambuie for us, dropping the rest at the church ... then it was time to leave for Boston!


So ... today I used the leftover Guinness to make Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake - SB will love it. Booze, chocolate, and a frothy icing 'head' ... another beautiful cake! Nigella says this cake should be a decadent moist affair with the icing plopped atop like a frothy head on a pint of cold stout. I did my best ... even put coffee syrup in the icing to make that tawny brown Guinness foam. Sooo good! I ate a piece right after frosting and shooting ... in the interest of science. Had to confirm it's edibility, you see. Blarney or truth? I leave it to you ...

Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake

an adapted recipe

Ingredients:

1 c. chocolate stout

10 tbsp. soft butter

¼ c. plus 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 c. sugar

¼ c. plus 2 tbsp. low-fat sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

2 c. flour

2½ tsp. baking soda

Frosting:

1¼ c. confectioner’s sugar

8 ounces Neufchatel cheese

½ c. heavy cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. hot water

2 tsp. instant coffee granules

 Making the Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and grease a tube pan generously.
2. Place the chocolate stout and the butter in a small saucepan and melt the butter over medium heat.
3. Remove the stout and butter from the heat and cool slightly.
4. Meanwhile, whisk the cocoa and sugar together in a deep bowl to break up any cocoa chunks.
5. Add the stout/butter mixture and whisk until smooth.
6. Add the sour cream and continue whisking until smooth.
7. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk to make a smooth batter.
8. In a small bowl whisk the flour and baking soda until combined and add all at once to the wet ingredients. Mix for a couple minutes to make a smooth batter.
9. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes to one hour … until a cake tester comes clean when poked into the middle of the cake.
10. Cool for one hour in the pan and then turn the cake out onto a pretty platter.
11. Finish cooling while you make the frosting.

 Making the Frosting:

1. Mix the hot water, coffee grains, and vanilla extract in a deep bowl
2. Add the Neufchatel cheese and the confectioner’s sugar and whip until the mixture is smooth and lump-free.
3. Add the heavy cream and continue whipping until the volume of the icing increases and the consistency is like thick whipped cream.
4. Chill briefly until it’s time to plop dollops on the top of the cake so that the icing resembles the froth on the top of a pint of draft beer.
5. Chill the cake or serve immediately with big glasses of cold milk.