Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake

In this Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake recipe, the Guinness is cooked within the cake, and it’s also incorporated into a “sauce” that you drizzle into the cake before you top it with ganache.

This turns out to be a very moist and chocolatey cake. The Guinness just gives it a slight malty taste. It’s definitely not a major alcohol-flavored cake or anything like that. We love to make this cake for St. Patrick’s Day, but it also happens to be a nice, sweet ending to a dinner party too. Be sure to use the rest of your Guinness stash to make Beef and Guinness Stew or Guinness Corned Beef!

Ingredients needed:

• unsweetened cocoa powder
• Guinness stout
• all purpose flour
• baking soda, baking powder and salt
• butter
• white sugar
• eggs
• vanilla extract
• buttermilk
• brown sugar
• heavy whipping cream
• semisweet chocolate

How to make Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake:

The full, printable recipe is at the end of this post. You will need an 8 or 9-inch round cake pan for this recipe. Grease and flour the pan.

Warm the Guinness and cocoa powder together, and then let cool. Then sift the dry ingredients. Beat the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla separately. Add buttermilk to the cooled Guinness mixture. Then add the buttermilk and dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately. 

Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes- until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Invert the cake onto a rack. Use a fork to poke holes in the bottom of the cake. Heat sauce ingredients in a small pan. Spoon most of the sauce onto the cake, allowing the cake to absorb the liquid. Then invert the cake right-side-up onto a serving platter. Poke holes in the top of the cake, and spoon the rest of the sauce on top.

The next step is adding the chocolate ganache. Bring the cream to a simmer in a pan. Remove the cream from the heat, and add the chocolate. Let the chocolate melt, and then stir it into the cream until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Pour the ganache onto the top of the cake. Use a spatula to cover the top evenly, and nudge it toward the sides.

The ganache will drizzle down the sides of the cake and pool on the cake platter. That’s okay. It’s decadent, wonderful ganache! Reserve any extra ganache in the refrigerator to spoon over ice cream or form into truffles.

Slice, and eat! If you want to cut the rich chocolate flavor a bit, serve your Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

St. Patrick’s Day recipes:

• Irish Soda Bread
• Spotted Dog Scones
• Corned Beef Cabbage Rolls
• Irish Stew
• Shamrock Sugar Cookies
• Colcannon

5 from 2 votes

Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake

By RecipeGirl.com

This is a super delicious chocolate cake!

Prep: 45 minutes mins

Cook: 50 minutes mins

Total: 1 hour hr 35 minutes mins

Servings: 10 servings

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Ingredients

CAKE:

• ▢ ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• ▢ ⅓ cup Guinness stout
• ▢ 1 cup all purpose flour
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ⅓ cup butter, at room temperature
• ▢ 1 cup granulated white sugar
• ▢ 2 large eggs
• ▢ ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ ⅓ cup low fat buttermilk

CHOCOLATE GUINNESS SAUCE:

• ▢ ¼ cup Guinness stout
• ▢ 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• ▢ 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

CHOCOLATE GANACHE GLAZE:

• ▢ 1¼ cups heavy whipping cream
• ▢ 10 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (or chopped chocolate)

Instructions 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. and place a rack in the middle of the oven. Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch cake pan (or use an 8-inch pan if you'd like a slightly taller cake.)

PREPARE THE CAKE:

• In a small saucepan, combine the cocoa powder and the Guinness. Heat over medium-low heat until smooth and warmed. Set aside to cool.
• In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl use an electric mixer to beat the butter until creamy. Gradually add the sugar and beat until pale yellow in color. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the the vanilla.
• Stir the buttermilk into the cooled cocoa and stout mixture.
• With the mixer on low, slowly add ⅓ of the buttermilk mixture into the creamed butter until incorporated. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the remaining two parts of the buttermilk and ending with the flour. The batter will look grainy or appear to be breaking up.
• Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake 25 to 35 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack with parchment or waxed paper beneath it. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then slide a knife around the edge of the pan and invert the pan to release the cake, bottom side up, onto a wire rack. When cool, use a fork to poke holes generously into bottom side of cake.

ADD THE SAUCE:

• In a small saucepan, mix the sauce ingredients and heat over low heat until smooth. Allow to cool. Spoon ¾ of the sauce over the bottom of the cake, allowing the sauce to seep into the cake. Invert the cake right-side-up onto a serving platter. Poke holes in the top of the cake and spoon the remainder of the sauce on top of the cake.

ADD THE GLAZE:

• In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a simmer. Turn off the heat and stir in the chocolate until the sauce is smooth and creamy. Pour onto the finished cake, smooth the ganache on top and along the sides of the cake. The ganache will pool at the bottom of the cake and can be removed with a knife, if desired.

Notes

• *If desired, spoon extra ganache into a zip baggie, snip the corner and squeeze on top of the cake in zigzag lines or a decorative pattern. If the ganache is too thin, allow it to thicken in the bag until thicker.
• *Reserve any extra ganache in the refrigerator to spoon over ice cream or form into truffles.

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice, Calories: 493kcal, Carbohydrates: 53g, Protein: 6g, Fat: 30g, Saturated Fat: 18g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 9g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 96mg, Sodium: 215mg, Potassium: 280mg, Fiber: 4g, Sugar: 36g, Vitamin A: 698IU, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 70mg, Iron: 3mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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