Guinness Chocolate Cake

I had to bring a cake to a birthday party - a very intimate one - with only 5 girls. The party was at this Japaneses restaurant called K on West Broadway and Watts. The place was great. It's BYOB and we ended up finishing all 3 bottles of wine, a bottle of champagne and a medium size bottle of vodka. I was drunk.... Anyway, I wanted some thing chocolate-y and not too big to bring. I found this recipe at Little Bouffe. It's perfect. The cake is only one layer so it won't be too big. It's a chocolate cake. I've never tried this recipe before. And it's got Guinness! I modified the recipe a little bit - especially the amount of sugar in both the cake and the frosting - since the girls don't really like sweet things.



Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons butter


• 1 cup Guinness Stout


• 4 oz. (4 cubes) semisweet chocolate


• 1 1/2 cups sugar


• 3/4 cup sour cream


• 2 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda



• 1 cup confectioner sugar


• 1/2 cup heavy cream


• 1 package cream cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 9 inch springform pan with non-stick spary.


2. In a sauce pan over medium low heat, melt chocolate and butter in Guinness. Be very gentle when pouring the Stout and when stirring.


3. When everything melted, turn off the heat and add sugar. Stir until well combined.


4. Whisk all purpose flour and baking soda together in a medium bowl.


5. Whisk sour cream, eggs and vanilla in a small bowl. Add this to Guinness mixture. Whisk gently until combined. Pour over flour and stir until we get a batter.


6. Bake in the prepared pan for 50 minutes. Let the cake cool.


7. Prepare the frosting by beating sugar and heavy cream with electric mixer. Add cream cheese. Beat until light and fluffy. Frost. Sprinkle shaved chocolate to decorate over the frosting.

People at the party said the cake was great but I think they were being nice. The texture was a little dense and it's not chocolate-y enough. Maybe it's because I used semi sweet chocolate instead of unsweetened. I might use 5oz. of chocolate the next time I bake this. I wonder if I beat the butter and sugar and eggs then add other ingredients - the cake will come out fluffier. I'm going to try it the next time I have a birthday party...