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?"

Made it very quickly so I didn’t add salt, which it needs. That said, I don’t find it very chocolatey. It fully filled a 2.5” tall 9” springform, so I sliced off the top 3/4” or so which allowed me to taste. I soaked it with a bit more beer (Sam smith double choc stout, which I also used in the cake because I could get a single) with some dark brown sugar and cocoa, that didn’t improve the flavor much. Very easy to make but not really worth it overall.

Used this recipe, recommend the following modifications:For the frosting I added 1 Tablespoon Irish Creme Liquor, added a great hint of flavorUsed Kerrygold Irish ButterRecommend folding in 1 cup ghirardelli semi sweet chocolate chips before baking, given depth in texture. Overall turned out delicious!!

Absolutely wonderful. Had to do in toaster oven bc our oven was broken and it worked fine. Blended the topping in the vitamix. Will def make again.

I can’t understand why the 4 oz. Difference in butter in the two recipes wouldn’t make a radical difference in the outcome…can anyone explain? Thank you!

I took the suggestions to use a coffee stout for the cake and adding Bailey’s to the cream cheese mixture…it was fabulous!

Agree with every single note that says this is the best chocolate cake they’ve ever made! My suggestion to make cream cheese topping not as runny is to separately whip the heavy cream, then gently fold into cream cheese mixture. This helped it be a bit more fluffy. I will never make a different type of chocolate cake ever again!! Everyone I served this to absolutely could not get enough!

Easy good. Frosting easy and can spread after refrigeration

Delicious! I didn't have a 9" springform so used an 8" square instead. The cake did crown significantly and got a little dark in the corners, so next time I will opt for a round pan. I will also add a little instant coffee. I turned it into a 2-layer cake bc it was so tall at the center, and I wish that I had made 50% more frosting. I also might cut back on the cream, as the finished frosting was a little thin. (I didn't want to add more sugar, as I think the sweetness level was just right.)

No need to use the springform pan, a good quality 9"pan, lined w parchment will do the trick.(same for cheesecakes). Salt is a must 1/2 tsp at least. Mine dropped overnight which was distressing but it turned out alright, I can see it now in the picture so it would be helpful to mention that, just a super rich center on each cut. Intersting method for a very good good chocolate cake. Better second day.

Frosting was a disaster, never got to a thick enough consistency to be about to spread. Thought possibly I missed something in the recipe? I doubled checks and I did not not!

This was a flop and went in the trash. Cake: Made as directed, except added 1 tsp salt. It was way too heavy and had an aftertaste of last night's keg party. It didn't sink much in the middle. Wrapped springform pan with Al foil to catch minor leakage. Frosting: Tasted great, needs a better cake. Added some salt and a splash of Bailey's and whipped the cream, as others suggested, but it was still too runny to put on the cake and I had to add LOTS more pwd sugar to make it stay put.

I've made this cake several times because it's delicious, however, last night I over baked it. It dries out if you have it in longer than 45 minutes, so beware! But otherwise I followed the directions as written.

I didn't care for the cake particularly but the frosting is out of this world! A keeper just for that (I'll use my mom's chocolate cake recipe next time).

Absolutely fantastic cake! We had a huge St. Pat's party and EVERYONE loved this cake. I did add to the batter a tsp. of instant espresso power and a tsp. of Caffe DolceNero chocolate-coffee syrup I happened to have. Oh, and since I had 3.2 oz. of the Guinness Stout left over from the 8 oz, the recipe called for, I poured two ounces over the cooling cake after it came out of the oven, AND 1.2 oz into the frosting - which really DID look like foam atop a pint of ale!! Thank you so very much!

I made this for St Patrick’s Day. I followed the cake recipe very closely except I did salt as suggested by many. My cake absolutely sank in the middle despite me baking it until 200 degrees in the center. Other than that it was quite good. For the frosting, I beat the powdered sugar and cream cheese together in a stand mixer not a food processor (weird instruction) and only added enough cream to make the frosting spreadable- definitely not the full amount.