Chocolate Guinness bundt cake

God love whoever thought to put Guinness in a cake. It goes so beautifully with chocolate – it adds a delicious savoury richness and the most wonderful rich black colour to the sponge. I love a good bundt cake, and I really think the fluffy white cream cheese frosting looks wonderful in contrast to the black cake.

This recipe is adapted from a Hummingbird Bakery recipe. I decorated mine with a few (edible!) gold stars and some cake glitter, along with the birthday candles of course!

You will need:

250ml Guinness
250g unsalted butter
100g cocoa powder
400g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
150ml buttermilk
280g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp baking powder

For the frosting:

50g unsalted butter (soft)
300g icing sugar
125g cream cheese

Preheat your oven to 170°c.
Grease your bundt tin generously with cake release or vegetable oil.
Measure your Guinness and pour into a saucepan. Chop up the butter and add it to the Guinness, then warm on a medium heat until the butter melts. If it gets too hot it will fizz up.
When it is completely melted, take it off the heat and add the cocoa powder and sugar. Whisk briskly to ensure there are no lumps – cocoa powder has a sneaky habit of clumping unless you whip it into submission.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and buttermilk by hand. Pour the mix into the chocolately mixture and beat until smooth.
Then sift the flour, bicarb and baking powder into the batter, and whisk with an electric whisk. You can use a standing mixer or a handheld mixer for this, but make sure you scrape down the sides for any stray flour. You want it to be thoroughly mixed before cooking.
Pour the batter into your greased cake tin. This cake can take up to an hour or so mins to cook, but it depends on both your oven and your cake tin. I suggest checking on it after 30 mins, then checking on it at 10 minute intervals. Stick a skewer into the middle to check this – if it comes out clean, it’s cooked. If it’s a bit chocolatey, leave it in for a bit longer.
Once it is cooked, take it out of the oven and place on a wire cooling rack. After 5 mins, tip upside down and carefully release the cake. You might want to bash the base of the tin a couple of times for good measure. It should come out fairly easily.
Leave to cool. It must be completely cold when you come to frost it.
While it’s cooling, make the frosting. Pop the butter, cream cheese, and icing sugar into a bowl and mix on a very low speed until it comes together. Once it’s combined, beat for 5 mins or so until fluffy.
When the cake is cold, frost it. Encourage the icing down the sides a bit so it covers it nicely.
Serve!