Chocolate Guinness Cake

This is one of my favourite cakes to bake, and eat! It's quite simple to put together as you can do it all with a saucepan and a bowl, and as it just needs the topping spooning on top there's no faffing around with icing bags.

I first tried this when a colleague brought in one that his wife had made. It was gone in minutes as myself and my other colleagues were on it like vultures! I’ve made it a lot since then because of it’s ease, and how tasty it is, and it always goes down really well.

Thanks very much to Nigella for such a brilliant recipe.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKE

250ml guinness

250g unsalted butter

75g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

150ml sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

275g plain flour

2½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

INGREDIENTS FOR THE TOPPING

300g cream cheese

150g icing sugar

125ml double cream

A photo a colleague took when I took cake into work!

Preheat the oven to 180°C and butter and line a 23cm / 9 inch springform tin.

Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter in slices and heat until the butter's melted.

Then whisk in the cocoa and sugar.

Beat the sour cream with the eggs and pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Mine usually takes about 50 minutes.

Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

Leave the cake to cool and then ice. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat to combine.

Add the cream and beat until you have a spreadable consistency.

Ice the top of the black cake and enjoy!