Michelle Darmody: How to make my popular chocolate stout cake

You can also make cute cupcakes with this recipe

This chocolate stout cake was one of the cakes I was most often asked to bake when I ran a bakery in Dublin. It has a wonderful mix of the slight savouriness from the malt of the stout, and the sweet creaminess of the icing.

It is a recipe made famous by Nigella Lawson in the early 2000s and has been adapted and tweaked by bakers ever since.

The type of stout used can be of your own choosing, depending on where in the country you are located and where your loyalties lie.

Whichever you choose, it is best out of a bottle, or if that is not possible, from a can will also suffice. The bubbles and carbonation in the stout help to create the texture of the cake which is quite dense and fudgy. The chocolate flavour comes from cocoa powder rather than a chocolate bar or drops.

When you stir the cocoa powder through the warmed stout and melted butter, it intensifies and the heat allows it to distribute. Because of cocoa powder’s slightly strange hydrophobic nature, it can tend to float on liquids rather than blend, but the warmth and oiliness allow it to combine.

Like a sticky gingerbread, or a banana bread, this cake ages well. After a day or so, the moisture distributes, and the flavours blend to enrich the cake. This makes it a great one to prepare a day or two in advance of when you need it.

Just make sure to keep it airtight and hold off on icing it until soon before serving.

Chocolate Stout Cake

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

This chocolate stout cake was one of the cakes I was most often asked to bake, when I ran a bakery in Dublin.

Servings

10

Preparation Time

 25 mins

Cooking Time

 45 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 10 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• 250g soft butter

• 250ml stout

• 75g cocoa powder

• 400g golden caster sugar

• 150mls sour cream

• 2 eggs

• 2 tsp vanilla

• 270g plain flour, sieved

• 2 tsp bread soda, sieved

• For the icing

• 200g cream cheese

• 2 tbsp honey

• 1 tsp lemon juice and zest 1 lemon

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 100g icing sugar

Method

1. Line a round 9-inch tin.

2. Preheat your oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3.

3. Place the butter and stout into a saucepan and place over a very low heat until the butter has melted.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the sugar and cocoa powder. Set aside.

5. Whisk the eggs, vanilla and sour cream and add this to the slightly cooled stout mixture.

6. Stir in the sieved bread soda and flour.

7. Stir until combined.

8. Scoop into the prepared tin.

9. Place the tin in the centre of your oven and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

10. Allow to cool in the tin until cool enough to handle, then remove and place onto a wire rack to cool completely.

11. To make the icing, whisk all of the ingredients until smooth.

12. Ice the cake so that it looks like your favourite pint of stout.

Baker's tips

It is best that all of the ingredients are at room temperature when making this cake. It helps them to combine more easily and to prevent over-mixing, which can lead to a stiff, less moist crumb.

It is worth seeking out good quality cocoa powder. Cocoa powder differs from drinking chocolate powder, which generally has added sweeteners and is less intense in flavour.

Natural Greek yogurt is a good substitute if you do not have access to sour cream. It has a higher protein content than regular yogurts, which makes it thicker and creamier.

It is good to keep an eye on the stout and butter in the saucepan as they heat. You do not want the mixture to boil. Just gently heat it until the butter is melted.

You can make this as a 2lb loaf cake or in an 8in square tin if you prefer. Keep an eye on the cooking time and test with a skewer after about 40 minutes, and every five minutes after that until baked through.

You may feel that the batter is very runny in comparison to other cakes, but it is supposed to be. It is a very moist cake once baked.

If the cake sinks a little in the centre do not worry. This usually happens, and for that reason it is often best to turn it upside down and ice the flat base.

Make sure the cake has cooled completely before icing it, otherwise the icing will slip off and become runny.

If you are making the cake a day or two ahead, ice it on the day that you need it. The icing will spoil within a day, so it is best eaten soon enough after you have it iced.

Three delicious variations

Stout cupcakes

You can make cute cupcakes with this recipe; each topped with a cream cheese swirl. I use 12 large muffin paper cases and divide the batter between them.

You will need to change the baking time and check if they are baked after 20 minutes and every five minutes after that until baked through.

Double chocolate stout cake

This version is iced with chocolate ganache for a double chocolate hit. Heat 150ml of cream until shivering with the heat and stir in 150g of dark chocolate drops.

You can stir in a half a tablespoon of whiskey if you wish. Allow the ganache to set until it is spreadable and ice your cake.

Irish cream icing

If you want to blend two iconic Irish alcohol drinks, you can use an Irish cream liqueur to make the icing. Whisk 115g of cream cheese with 100g of icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of whichever Irish cream liqueur you like best.