Chocolate Guinness Cake Recipe (2024)

Love this cake. I do think a little Bailey's in the frosting does wonders.

We make this cake one day in advance. It tastes better and it's a little more moist. We release the spring form after about an hour in the cooling process so the sides don't stick the next day. We prepare the frosting the day we plan to serve.
In a side by side taste test with my family of 19 tasters... this was a clear winner over the epicurious three layer Guinness cake.

It's better with 1) a half-teaspoon of kosher salt added to the dry ingredients, and 2) a better stout than Guinness - preferably a chocolate stout.

Made this cake for the folks. They loved it! Didn’t notice the Guinness in the cake, but I noticed there was leftover beer in the bottle, so it was a win for the cook.

Please list ingredients by weight, not by volume.

For those of you asking for weight. You can find it on Nigella's website
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086

Made cake as stated. I used about 3 oz. of goat cheese in the topping in place of cream cheese. To accompany the cake I use a jar of Morrelo cherries simmered in a bit of sugar and ruby port. Served it on a plate and put the cake on top. It was a warm syrupy mixture that set off the deep chocolate cake. It was awesome and pretty.

This was superb and so easy to make! Not too sweet (I used ordinary sugar, not superfine, and didn't adjust quantity). Came out perfectly. Icing was easy too, and frosted beautifully. My husband loved the deep flavor of chocolate with a hint of bitterness. Looked gorgeous as well! Did I mention how easy it was to make? :)

I make this with the above-noted changes (salt, a better stout) in a Bundt pan, rather than a springform, and don't frost it at all. Dusting with a mix of confectioner's sugar and cocoa is all it needs, not a thick gloppy frosting.

I made it in Denver (5280', folks, if you had forgotten!) and it didn't fall! Changes:
9oz stout
6.25 oz sugar: 2cups minus 2T
10.25 oz flour: added 2T to the 2cups
2 tsp baking soda (not 2.5)
Baked at 375 (actually in my convection oven, 350 which is 375 in normal ovens) for 35 mins. I should have checked at 30 mins.
Also, I food-processed the sugar and cream cheese, then added the whipping cream just until I liked the texture.
Quite yummy

I made this recipe into cupcakes, adjusting the cooking time downwards and just using a cake tester to figure out when they were done. I also used the food processor to make superfine sugar out of white granulated sugar with no problems. The cupcakes were a hit!

I have made this over and over since it was first published and think it is the best in the world! Last one I used a cherry ale instead of Guinness. Also tossed in a coupla handfuls of frozen Bing cherries and added more chopped cherries to the frosting and a bit more powdered sugar to thicken. The cake was grand and gone in one day. I am going to keep experimenting with the recipe as my go-to base for chocolate cake.

And a few more notes on making and baking the cake:
I let the butter-Guinness-sugars-cocoa mixture cool to room temp before adding to batter.
After filling the pan, I rapped it on the counter a few times to shake out any air pockets.
I used an instant-read thermometer to check for doneness: 200 degrees F in center (don't start testing too early and deflate the cake).

My go-to chocolate cake, always wins raves. It's what I think a chocolate cake should be: intensely chocolate-y, not overly sweet, and fairly dense. Occasionally I save other chocolate cake recipes but then I think, "Why bother?"

5* recipe. Accidentally threw in 8 Tbsp of butter and did not miss it. Original recipe has 2 sticks and NYT is 10 Tbsp. Works just fine with 8.

Add a little Bailey’s to the frosting

Perfection! No further comment needed!

Weighing in as a “non-baker.” I don’t have an electric mixer, and I had to run out and buy a 9” cake pan. I mixed everything together with a dinner fork. This recipe is very approachable for newbies. It turned out great! I don’t like overly sugary desserts and this one isn’t. The icing is more rich than sweet. The Guinness adds depth to the chocolate flavor. Makes too much batter for the cake pan. In future I will not fill the pan to the brim, as it overflowed in my oven. Cleanup wasn’t bad.

So I followed all the instructions, halved the recipe for cupcakes and... the cupcakes themselves are indistinguishable from the icing. Like you can't taste them at all. It's good but the icing just takes over, you wouldn't even know I added Guinness or espresso powder. Not sure what went wrong.

I don't understand the tip. Is the tip to use almost 2x as much butter as stated in the ingredients list if you feel like it?

Make cake one day ahead. Release from pan after it cools for 1 hour. Frost the next day.

I suggest checking it at 35 minutes. At 45 minutes it was over baked and a little dry.

Okay y'all I've made this cake three times and it has sunk in the middle each time. I think the ratio of moist ingredients to dry is off. I flip it so no one can tell, but I know it's not perfect and that hurts my perfectionist bakers soul

The icing was good but maybe a little too much. I would use a little dusting of confectioner sugar next time.

Delicious. I’d like to try it another time with a peanut butter stout and peanut butter icing.

Followed the great tip to bake the cake a day in advance. I may have accidentally spilled 2 Tablespoons of Bourdon into the frosting—gorgeous. This recipe, using the butter quantities from NYT, was perfection—a huge hit at our St. Patrick’s Day party.🍀

Nigella is brilliant and fabulous, but I have yet to make a recipe of hers that is better than mediocre. Everyone in my family thought this cake was just edible. It was not hard, but why bother.

Incredible. Phenomenal. Show stopping.

Adding Irish cream to the frosting is THE MOVE (2 tablespoons was the perfect amount). Glad I tried that tip from other commenters. However, next time I’ll reduce the heavy cream by a few tablespoons when making that addition so the icing is thicker. Also, I don’t have a springform pan so I used a regular round cake pan and made 6 cupcakes with the rest as another commenter noted. Cooked for 35 minutes and came out perfect.