things I make in my kitchen...: Chocolate Guinness Cake with Bailey's Whipped Cream

Kerry, my neighbor from downstairs I have mentioned before, is having a birthday this week. You must know what that means... time for a Birthday Cake! She loves chocolate, but she also loves a good beer. I remember eating a Guinness chocolate cake a year or so ago and fell in love with it. Today, I am recreating Nigella Lawsons recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake. I opted to make a Bailey's whipped cream instead of the cream cheese frosting from Ms.Laweson's site. I thought a fluffy light cream would be better, plus its spiked with Bailey's. I think she is going to love it.

Cake

1 cup Guinness stout (NOT including foam. Make sure the beer liquid goes up to a cup)
10 tbs (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
3/8 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsps baking soda

Frosting
2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/3 cup Bailey's Irish Creme

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a cake pan or bundt pan. I like the look of tbe bundt pan so that is what I am using. You can also use a spring-form pan. In a large saucepan, melt the butter, but do not turn it on too high (you do not want the butter to brown). Once mostly melted, combine the Guinness by slowly pouring it into the saucepan. Once all the butter melts, remove the saucepan from heat.

Place the warm butter mixture in a large bowl. Add cocoa and sugar, and whisk till all ingredients are blended. Set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Make sure this is very well mixed and airy. Come on people... put some muscle into it!

Add the sour cream mixture into the Guinness mixture, once the Guinness mixture is cooled. You do not want scrambled eggs, which will happen if the mixture is too hot. Whisk together.

Next, add the flour and baking soda into a small bowl and evenly incorporate the 2 ingredients.Next, add the dry ingredients to the Guinness mixture. Whisk the the batter until smooth.

Pour the cake batter into a buttered and floured pan, and bake until risen and firm, which is about 35 minutes to 45 minutes. In a spring form pan, because of less surface area, you would be baking it closer to 45 minutes, while a bundt pan takes about 35. Once the cake is slightly cool, not hot not too cold, remove the cake from the pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

I made 2 mini cakes for me and Katie to try it, you know... just to make sure it was delicious :)

For the frosting, you can do this by hand but it may take a longggg time. A hand mixer or stand mixer will work best here. I am using a stand mixer, so the rest of the directions will be as such. Pour the 2 cups of heavy cream into the mixer and turn it on a low speed to start whisking some air into it.

Once it starts to get frothy, turn the speed up a little higher.

When the whipped cream is about half way done (the peaks are not super stiff and it still looks a little liquidy), add the Bailey's, bit by bit, so as to not completely undo what you have just done with the beater.

Taste it. You want to taste the Bailey's but not have it too overpowering, so don't add more than 1/3 cup. If you want it a little sweeter, add some granulated sugar. Personally, I don't think it needs anymore sweetness. If you do add some sugar, do this near the end. When the whipped cream is almost done, add the sugar, beat it a little bit more, and then stop. DO NOT OVER BEAT, as it will ruin the whipped cream. If you are scared about this, don't be. What I do is run my finger through the whipped cream and if it stays, essentially the "hole" I made doesn't vanish, then your cream is done. Another way it to pull the beater out and if you see a stiff peak at the top, and can turn it upside down without dripping, you are done.