Chocolate Guinness Cake
2 cups Guinness
2 cups (4 sticks) butter, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
4 cups all purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 T baking soda
1 t 1/2 salt
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream
Preheat oven to 350*. Butter or spray three 8 inch pans or muffin pans. If using cake pans, line with parchment paper. Also butter or spray paper.
Bring stout and butter to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat and then whisk in cocoa powder. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly.
In a seperate bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Beat eggs and sour cream in a large bowl. Add stout mixture to eggs mixture. Beat to combine. Slowly add flour mixture and fold to blend. Divide batter evenly among pans. Bake about 35 to 45 minutes and then cool completely before removing from pans. Reduce the baking time to 20 minutes if using muffin pans. Use a cake tester to check to see if it's done. If it comes out clean then it's ok to take it out of the oven. This cake is very moist so it's hard to tell if it's done just by looking at it.
This cake is super easy to make an unbelievably delicious! I've had many people who don't like guinness eat this cake and can't get enough of it.
I made it at work this past weekend for the weekly Sunday brunch. I dipped the mini's in chocolate ganahce and then added a Bailey's Irish Creme white chocolate ganache
To make white chocolate ganache simply heat 1 cup of heavy cream to a boil. Then turn the heat off and add at least 2 1/2 cups of white chocolate chips, stir until melted. Add Bailey's to taste. White chocolate does not set up as thick as dark chocolate so more chips can be added to make a thicker ganache. Let this set up for a while before using on the cake. You can use it as a filling in the middle of the cakes. To make chocolate ganache for dipping, use 1 part cream to 2 parts chocolate and then dip when melted. The above amounts are not exact to this recipe but as a general rule of thumb, dark chocolate is 1 part cream/2 parts chocolate while white chocolate is 1 part cream to 3 parts chocolate.
I made 40 of the mini's and a larger display cake for brunch. Yum!