Things have been super busy this quarter and as you can see by the frequency of my posts, it's been a while since I've had the chance to bake. But, there was a need with it being one of my best friend's birthdays. I missed his birthday last year as a result of being abroad, so I decided I need to make up for it this year in the form of a cake. Since the birthday I'd missed was his 21st, I thought I'd make this cake to show Kyle that I hadn't forgotten that I still owed him a drink. The resolution: make a chocolate stout cake.
In addition to being pretty delicious and quite moist (I am always afraid of overbaking cakes) it was pretty simple to make. It also looked pretty nice, that is until I decided to add some lettering to the cake. I tried to practice beforehand, but my lettering still needs some work (there's a reason the lettered version isn't up here). I guess I'll just have to keep making birthday cakes in order to improve!
Chocolate Stout Cake (Lightly adapted from the Smitten Kitchen)
1 cup stout beer (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)*
2 cups all purpose flour (I used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose since it was all we had)
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream (I used 1/3 cup plain yogurt and 1/3 cup crème fraiche because it was also all we had)
*Recipes always say this and I always ignore it because I don't have the money to buy Dutch-process and my co-op has a perfectly acceptable billion pound bag of cocoa. But one day, I'll buy it. If you do use Dutch-process cocoa, let me know how it works out.
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a bundt pan well; make sure you get in all of the nooks and crannies. (Some people even go so far as to brush the inside of their bundt pans with melted butter–you cannot be too careful!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in a medium size saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Using electric mixer, (I almost never use one and it still comes out well) beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add slightly cooled stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined (Do not overmix!). Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan (be sure it's really completely cool or you might get chunks of cake stuck to your pan!), then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.
Ganache:
Ingredients:
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules (We didn't have any instant coffee, so I skipped this and just made regular ganache.)
Directions:
For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.
