cook: guinness chocolate cake with bailey’s irish cream frosting

My neighbors wanted to eat corned beef for St. Patrick's Day a day earlier on a Sunday, and I volunteered to bake a cake, specifically a chocolate Guinness cake with Bailey's cream cheese frosting. I baked it a couple years ago, which another neighbor thought my husband with his sweet tooth had baked, but nope t'was me who baked the Nigella Lawson recipe published in the New York Times. It's an easy bake. I buttered my largest spring form pan, 11" in diameter and then lined the bottom with parchment paper. In my medium saucepan, I melted 10 tablespoons of butter (basically a stick + 2 tablespoons) with a 1 cup of Guinness stout and 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's special dark) and 2 cups superfine sugar (I merely ground 2 1/4 cups granulated sugar in the Vitamix blender).

In a large mixing bowl, I whipped 3/4 cup sour cream, 2 large eggs and a tablespoon of Mexican vanilla.

I then poured the slightly cooled chocolate stout butter mixture into the sour cream and eggs and vanilla, constantly beating so as not to let the eggs get too cooked from the heat.

I then added 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda into the mixing bowl and continued beating with a whisk. I then poured the batter into the springform pan and popped it into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, which I probably should have baked longer because it can go for an hour, but I surmised with a larger springform pan, there'd be more surface area for evaporation. In the meantime, I brought out an 8 ounce block of cream cheese to room temperature, the Bailey's Irish cream, and powdered sugar.

Miss Lawson's recipe calls for a 1/2 cup of heavy cream added to the cream cheese and 1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar. However, I used 1/4 cup of Bailey's and 1/4 heavy whipping cream instead. I also kept adding more than the recipe's powdered sugar as the frosting was kind of runny, probably because of the alcohol. The cake was beautiful though and did resemble a glass of the dark stout with a frothy, creamy head.

I walked my cake over to the club house and had to say it looked like a fetching dessert.

The neighbors raved over the chocolate cake, and I sent just about everyone a slice for home. Yesterday was the actual St. Patrick's holiday, and I gave the last slice to our neighbor, Dave. Success! And so I'm chuffed to want to make more chocolate desserts because I've still some Bailey's cream cheese frosting in the refrigerator and itching to make a mini chocolate cake that Patrick can say is not underbaked.