Chocolate Cake... and a Pint

We seem to be on a run of chocolate recipes at the moment and here's another one we all thought sounded great from the first time we saw it - Chocolate Beer Cake. Delia's book has a whole section on chocolate cakes, and this looks like one of the best. I have made something with a similar idea before - a Nigella recipe for Guinness Chocolate Cake which was delicious, but very different to how this one turned out.

Julie tackled this recipe, giving us all a treat at our fortnightly team meeting. As you might expect, the recipe (on page 174 of Delia's Cakes) included Guinness (or any dark stout) and a fair bit of chocolate. The Guinness appeared in both the cake and the icing, and as someone who hates the stuff (I went to the factory in Dublin last year and only managed about 5 sips with a screwed up face before abandoning my free pint!) I have to say that this was absolutely delicious. You can't really taste the 'beery' element, you just know there's something there giving the chocolate flavour a bit of a twist.



Julie reported that the mixture was very runny (as you can see from the picture - it looks like melted chocolate!) - definitely not a cake to make in a loose bottomed tin unless you want to spend the rest of the day cleaning your oven! When it came out of the oven, it was really stuck to the greaseproof paper and difficult to get out of the tin, but it was all worth the effort!

Not being a fan of walnuts, Julie opted to use pecans instead - these were used for decoration on top, but also chopped up finely and put in the filling. They added a nice crunch to the cake - I wouldn't really have thought of including nuts in this sort of recipe, but it worked.

There was a long silence at our team meeting while we enjoyed this one - the cake itself is really light, and the icing rich and chocolatey which makes for a great combination. It's a great option to make as a birthday cake for someone who likes a pint of Guinness, but I am proof that you don't have to like beer to like this cake. It does have a bit of a grown up taste, so probably not a child friendly one, but otherwise if you like a good chocolate cake, you're going to love this recipe!