Chocolate Stout Cake – Olivia's Kitchen

I have been dying to bake a cake !! I haven’t baked for a while , with my husband’s office place is holding a weight loss competition for the next 8 weeks , i haven’t cooked and baked as much . I guess it is good for the money and the waist too . But i couldn’t stand it anymore and it was like i am having a withdrawals . To me , cooking and baking is a place where i can focus my mind just on it , having fun doing it , not having to worry about other stressful thing in life . Just like running , when i bake , cook or run , or working out , i can focus only on that and my mind doesn’t wonder anywhere else , esp. to the area where it bothers me much . So , i had that need , to bake ! My husband said that i should make a cake with chocolate ganache , he left it at that .

My son said that we should make doughnuts , he likes doughnut holes . And they’re easy to make anyway , so i told him i will make him that . Although i was set to make a cake . Eventually i did both of them . My kitchen was busy .. luckily i didn’t have to cook dinner , since we had leftovers of the spaghetti bolognese i made the day before .

My choice of cake landed on Chocolate Stout Cake , i wanted to try something that i never done before . It’s always fun trying new things , although i ended up having to buy 6 packs of beer !! We don’t drink beer , and when we buy them we only use it for cooking , such as chili . So this was another recipe that requires beer ,hence the name stout . And apparently , it requires a dark beer , and i didn’t have that kind on hand . And they didn’t sell just 1 bottle either .. i had to buy the whole thing .

I have to say , the cake turned out better than i thought it would be . I like chocolate but i am not a chocoholic , i am okay without it , and i can live without chocolate . It’s not something that i was like .. WOW .. But the cake itself was WOW .. it was moist , it was chocolaty , but it wasn’t overly sweet or overly rich . It was just great balance overall , and i believed the sour cream in the cake made a huge difference !! And always used that particular dark beer , i used Guiness .

If you feel intimidated by this , don’t .. DON’T .. there is no reason to be intimidated by this . This was quite an easy cake to make with a max. result . It is HUGE .. that was for sure , 3 layers of 8 inch cake , will serve more than 12 people i think . I ended up having to send half of the cake with my husband to work so he can share it with office people !

Direction :

4 sticks of butter , unsalted

2 cups of dark beer , such as guiness

1 1/2 cups of cocoa powder , unsweetened

In a medium pot , mix the butter and beer , under medium heat . Whisking the butter until it melts and add the cocoa powder , whisk until it’s mixed well . Remove from the heat , cool to lukewarm temperature .

4 large eggs

1 1/3 cup of sour cream

Beat this together in a large mixing bowl until combined . Then add the beer chocolate and butter mixer into the sour cream egg mixture . Mix well until combine . And add :

4 cups of all purpose flour

4 cups of sugar ( yes .. 4 , seems a lot i know !! )

1 tbsp. of baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. of salt

Beat on low about 15 seconds until the flour just combine . Stop the mixer , using spatula to fold the flour evenly . And pour into 3 -8 inch parchment paper line baking pan ( buttered and floured the pan before lining it with paper and again after lining it with paper , butter it again ) . Bake at 350 F , for about 35 minutes . Insert toothpick to see if it’s done or not .

When it’s done , let the cake cool about 20 minutes on it’s pan , and remove the cake from the pans . Let cool completely .

For the icing :

2 cups of heavy cream

1 lb of semi sweet chocolate chip ( not exceeding 61% cocoa )

In a medium pot , simmer the heavy cream until it starts bubbling on the edges and then remove from heat , whisk in chocolate chips until melted . Refrigerate for about 2 hours until you reach spreadable consistency to work as icing .

This is the picture step by step how to ice your cake :

1.Line a cake stand with parchment paper , not too big , just enough to line up the edges where you will work on .Then place the 1st layer of the cake on top the paper , and start working on the icing . Add the 2nd layer of the cake , ice it , and top it with the final layer of the cake .