VIV Bronson, the Head Chef of Compton Acres Café & Tearooms, shares her recipe for a Chocolate Guinness Cake.

As we move through autumn and the days start to get colder and darker, there’s nothing like a scrumptious slice of chocolate cake, served with a hot cup of your favourite coffee to lift the spirits!

Adding a delicious twist, you’ll be delighted to hear that we’ve created a wonderful version of the traditional chocolate cake spiked with everyone’s favourite Irish tipple, Guinness. With a delightful symphony of flavours and also incredibly easy to prepare, our Chocolate Guinness Cake is a regular addition to the Compton Acres café cake counter.

Why Add Guinness?

Rich and creamy. Distinctively black. Velvety in its finish. This is how Guinness describes their iconic beer and certainly one of the factors that makes this cake so delicious. When preparing your cake, we add a generous amount of Guinness into the standard chocolate cake mix, which includes butter, caster sugar, flour and eggs. My tip includes adding sour cream to the cake mix. Along with the Guinness, this will make your finished cake lighter in texture and at the same time very moist.

Chocolate Perfection

For the chocolate element of the cake, I advise you to use cocoa powder from a quality chocolate maker. It is important for the cocoa powder to be unsweetened, so do not confuse it with hot chocolate or drinking cocoa. When your cake is finished you will find that there’s a natural affinity between the chocolate and the dense, rich and ferrous flavour of Guinness. Combined they create a phenomenally tasty chocolate cake.

Once all your ingredients are combined and the cake is in the oven, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the wonderfully chocolatey and stout infused fragrance that will fill your house. Should you choose, you can crown your delicious culinary creation with a topping of full-fat cream cheese, cream and icing sugar. Simply sublime!

For more detailed instructions on my Chocolate Guinness Cake, follow the step-by-step recipe guide below.

www.comptonacres.co.uk

Ingredients

250 ml Guinness

250g butter

75g cocoa

400g caster sugar

140ml of sour cream

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

275g plain flour

2.5 level teaspoons baking soda

Topping

300g full-fat cream cheese

125ml cream

150g icing sugar

Method

Preheat your oven to 180oc. Butter and line a 23cm square or circular tin with baking paper. Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan and add the butter. Heat until the butter has melted. Whisk in the cocoa and caster sugar. Take off the heat and leave to cool. Beat the eggs with the sour cream in a small bowl with the eggs and vanilla. Pour this into the Guinness mixture. Sieve the flour and baking soda together and add to the pan. Whisk well until most of the lumps have been incorporated. Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave it in its tin to cool completely, which will take around 2 hours (or less if you leave it next to an open window). For the icing, beat the icing sugar into the cream cheese until fully incorporated. Whip the cream and fold into the cream cheese mixture. Spoon onto the cake with a spatula. Store in the fridge until required.