living in the woods and making stuff

Sometimes I need to remind myself that I can indeed bake a cake. I bake cakes so rarely, that when I see something that looks interesting, and I have the inclination, I just need to do it! This afternoon, while browsing npr.org, I found a recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake. Being the lovely beer drinking holiday that it is tomorrow, I decided to make this one…

Then I went through all the formalities. Made a list (left it at home by accident), called my brother to look up the recipe online and advise as to the type of beer recommended (while wandering aimlessly through the wine and spirits section of Drugtown), bought the rest of the ingredients from memory, went home, and baked the cake.

I love the satisfaction of following a thought from start to finish so quickly. (It wasn’t a particularly daunting task, but completed all the same.)

I don’t think that I have ever tried beer in baking. Sometimes my mom cooks with beer (most famously, welsh rarebit), but I can’t remember her baking anything either.

This particular recipe, by Nigella Lawson, calls for called for Guinness, and so I went to Drugtown and purchased a 6 pack (taking care to get the “real” stuff imported from Ireland), for which I only needed one cup…

The beer is heated in a large saucepan with the butter, and it created in my kitchen a deliciously tasty aroma of beer and butter…sounds kind of gross, but it wasn’t . I have never mixed a cake in a saucepan, and was a little worried that I might cook the eggs and sour cream mix (being incorporated below). I didn’t though, and everything went smoothly, and I got the batter into the springform pan and into the oven.

I broke down and drank the left over bit of beer (breaking my no drinking while operating hot ovens rule..). There was only a little left, and it tasted particularly delicious paired with the left over batter!

The frosting is a cream cheese, cream, and sugar frosting. It is layered onto the top to mimic the frost on the top of a pint of Guinness. The cake isn’t too sweet, and the tartness of the cream cheese goes well with the rich chocolate flavor of the cake.

I took the cake into to work in my pie carrier basket, which is the perfect size to carry pies and cakes around. As the day went on, the cake gradually diminished in size, and when I took the basket home, there was one piece left for my mom…thanks to everyone that helped in eating!