Baking: Guinness Cake with Bailey’s Cream Cheese Frosting

St. Patrick’s Day is this Wednesday, and so I spent my Sunday afternoon baking a Guinness cake. I used Nigella Lawson's recipe which calls for 1 cup Guinness, 17 tablespoons of butter (basically two sticks and a knob), 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, 2 cups superfine sugar, 2/3 cup sour cream, 2 large eggs, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 9 inch springform pan with parchment paper and butter.    

Cut the butter into chunks and melt in the stout over low heat. Then whisk in the cocoa powder and sugar. Whisk the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla and then combine with the stout, cocoa, sugar mixture.

Next whisk in the flour and baking soda. Pour chocolate cake batter into the springform pan.

Slide the filled cake pan into the oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour.

Gawd is my oven dirty, but hey mess happens because we bake. Once your cake is done, let it cool and while cooling, make frosting.

Whip the cream cheese and then add 1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, 2 teaspoons cornstarch (which I forgot, and the frosting may be a little runny, but it's holding), and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (OR Bailey's Irish cream on the suggestion of a friend and blimey, was it delicious).

What's lovely about using Bailey's is that it adds a nice mocha tinge to the cake that resembles the frothy cap to a Guinness (hence, I will just spread rather than pipe the frosting next time). I got fancy and piped rosettes all over the top of my cake. Hubs declared it good though he would've liked it a bit sweeter.