Lagniappe for St. Patrick: The best chocolate cake is Irish!

For many years, our family cake has been the chocolate-almond one from Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, the one that calls for melted chocolate, ground almonds, butter, sugar, and not much else. It is our go-to recipe for birthdays and celebrations and even Thanksgiving (the year the lights went out in the Teverina farmhouse in the midst of Thanksgiving preparations was the year we had to whisk the egg whites by hand and bake the cake in the wood-fired oven, but we did it!)

I am reluctant ever to depart from that classic, comforting, and utterly delicious recipe. But times change, the book group is meeting today to discuss Fintan O’Toole’s personal history of Ireland, We Don’t Know Ourselves, and a cake made with Guinness seemed to be right for the menu.

It turns out that recipes for a Guinness chocolate cake are all over the internet. Who was I to challenge them? As is my habit, however, I pored over three or four of the most telling and then put them together, a bit from Nigella Lawson (British self-styled kitchen goddess), a bit from Fante’s (historic supplier of all things Italian, food and gear alike, in South Philadelphia), a bit from the irrepressible Ottolenghi (who tarts things up and makes them more complicated).

The following is the result. Most of the ingredients are probably in your pantry, but you will need a bottle of Guinness, the dark, forbidding stout said to be beloved of the Irish. The last time I had Guinness was 55 years ago when I was a nursing mother and found it disgusting. Times and tastes change, however, and a sip or two of that darkly aromatic, malty beverage now strikes me as at least interesting, if not actually what the Brits call more-ish.

While you’re making this outstanding cake, think about the history of Ireland—400 years of repression by the English, historians tell us, until they finally broke free just over a hundred years ago. It’s claimed the English used their Irish experience to prepare for domination of other lands, in India, in North America, in Africa. What always puzzles me is this: why did it take the Irish so long to break loose? O’Toole discusses some of the reasons in his magnificent book, which is as dark as a pint of Guinness in itself. You can find it here.

Best things about this recipe? It’s quick and easy, it does not require getting out the Kitchen-Aid or the food processor, and it makes a cake that is light in texture and truly rich with flavor. Most recipes suggest a cream-cheese icing on top but I liked it better with no icing at all, just a dusting of confectioner’s sugar.

beautiful rich texture! and the flavor—oh my!

St. Patrick’s Day being what it is, however, it demanded a touch of green so green icing it is!

I was only able to buy stout in a six-pack which was of course way more than I needed. What to do with the rest? The cashier’s suggestion at my local Hannaford’s? Use it to make bone broth. “I add it to the broth I make for my kids,” she said. “Call it beer broth, they love it!”

Live and learn!

Here's what you will need:

• Butter for the pan, plus one and a half sticks (6 ounces/170 grams), unsalted

• 1 cup Guinness stout (240 ml)

• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa (65 grams/2.25 oz.)

• 1 ½ cups superfine sugar (300 grams/10.5 oz.)

• ¾ cup sour cream (170 grams/6 oz.)

• 2 large eggs

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (240 grams)

• 2 ½ teaspoons baking soda

• ½ cup (85 g.) unsweetened chocolate chips

Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch/23 cm. cake pan, the kind with a removable bottom. Line the bottom with parchment paper.

Turn the oven on to 350ºF/175ºC.

Add the Guinness and the remaining butter to a saucepan large enough to hold all the ingredients and set over low heat until the butter is thoroughly melted, then remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Now that the saucepan with the Guinness and butter mixture is cooler (but still warm to the touch), dump in the cocoa powder and the sugar and thoroughly blend them into the liquid with a wire whisk. In a separate bowl, blend together the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla, and add that mixture to the saucepan. Add the flour and baking powder and whisk by hand until very smooth. Finally, add the chocolate chips and fold them in, using a rubber spatula.

Pour the contents of the saucepan into the buttered cake tin and transfer to the hot oven. Bake until the cake is firm in the center and pulling away slightly from the sides of the cake tin, 45 to 55 minutes. When done, remove from the oven and set the cake tin on a wire rack to cool completely before removing it from the tin.

If you want to frost the cake, make a cream cheese frosting by blending with a fork about 8 ounces (225 grams) of room-temperature cream cheese with 1¼ cups (145 grams) of confectioner’s sugar. Work ¼ cup (60 ml.) of heavy cream into the mixture, adding more cream if necessary to make it spreadable. Don’t try to ice the cake until it is thoroughly cooled down to room temperature; once iced, keep it cool until you serve it.