If I politely ignore the first few attempts at writing and photographing recipes, May is anniversary month for Heinstirred. One year of blogging to be exact. I am thoroughly enjoying the journey, interaction with readers and fellow bloggers and so excited about some opportunities that are coming my way.
But back to cake! What is any anniversary without cake? Since moving to the city I have been a frequent visitor to Roeland Liqours, working my way through their excellent selection of South African craft beer. When I came across a bottle of Copperlake Chocolate I knew the creamy stout is heading straight into a chocolate cake.
The almost smoky chocolate taste of the beer adds a wonderful layer to the cake. I used Nigella’s Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe from Feast and tweaked it here and there (I am dying to say improved it).
This Chocolate Stout Cake is a dense, damp cake with deep chocolate flavours and even with this amount of sugar not overly sweet, which I find always overpowers other flavours. The (fantastic) frosting is silky soft and smooth with just a hint of tangy sourness to compliment the richness of the cake. And the addition of the stout to the frosting provides an off white colour reminiscent of the head of the beer.
Ingredients
- 250ml chocolate stout beer
- 250g butter at room temperature and chopped into pieces
- 75g cocao
- 375g castor sugar
- 150ml full fat plain yoghurt
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon coffee extract
- 275g plain flour
- 2 ½ teaspoons bicarb of soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Frosting
- 250g cream cheese
- 150ml plain full fat yoghurt
- 30ml chocolate stout beer
- 150g icing sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Butter and line a 23cm springform tin.
- Pour the beer in a large saucepan, add the butter and heat until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat and whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
- Whisk the yoghurt, eggs, vanilla and coffee extract together and then whisk in with the beer mixture.
- Add the flour, bicarb and salt to the mixture and whisk until well combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Test with a skewer after 45 minutes. It is quite a damp cake but the skewer must not come out wet.
- Let the cake cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack.
- When cake is cold remove from the tin and make the frosting.
- Soften the cream cheese with a spoon and whisk with the yoghurt and beer until smooth. Sieve the icing sugar over the mixture and whip together until smooth and fluffy.
- Top the cake with the frosting and serve.
- Adapted from Nigella Lawson
Anina @ Aninas-Recipes
May 26, 2014
Wow wow wow, as usual your pics just caused me to drool over my keyboard! Really stunning!!
hein
May 26, 2014
Thank you so much Anina! So nice to hear 🙂
dina
May 26, 2014
it looks delicious!
hein
May 27, 2014
Thank you so much Dina! It is a treat.
Sam
May 26, 2014
Some really cool lighting there Hein
hein
May 27, 2014
thanks Sam!
Selma @ Selma's Table
Jun 1, 2014
Congratulations on your bloggiversary Hein! I can’t believe that you have only been blogging for a year – you are quite inspirational. This cake looks stunning and your lighting is breathtaking (is this what they call chiaroscuro?) And I love that you have improved on Nigella! Here’s to another great year for you!
hein
Jun 2, 2014
Thank you so much Selma – you have made my day! I had to look up chiaroscuro so I guess if it is it was not intentional 🙂 Have a wonderful day!