Recipe: Guinness Cake

If you’re looking to up your dessert game, try your hand at this Guinness Cake recipe from a top restaurant

Treat your guests to a dessert worthy of a head chef with this melt-in-the-mouth recipe for Guinness Cake created by Richie Wilson for SOLE Seafood & Grill.

Ingredients

For the cake:

180g Plain flour
320g Caster sugar
50g Cocoa powder
1tsp Baking powder
135ml Milk
100ml Vegetable oil
70g Egg whites
50g Egg yolks
200ml Guinness
.5ea Vanilla pod seeds

For the coffee ganache:

310g White chocolate
300ml Cream
1tsp Instant Coffee
2ea Gelatine Leaf

Guinness Gel:

200ml Guinness
50g Caster sugar

To garnish:

Toasted Almond Flakes
Cacao nibs
Vanilla Ice Cream, or a little whipped vanilla cream

Method:

In a large mixing bowl combine the sugar, oil, milk, Guinness, egg whites and yolks along with the vanilla. Just bring these all together with a light whisk trying not to over mix.

In a separate bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Shoot all the dry mix into the bowl of wet ingredients. Fold these all together trying to trap as much air as possible, until smooth and shiny.

Line a large baking tray (2-3 inches deep) with parchment paper. Now spread the batter evenly across the tray.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees for 35 minutes. Use a wooden skewer to check after 35 minutes, dip into the centre of the cake, if the skewer comes out clean it is done, if not return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes before checking again.

Coffee Ganache

Bring the cream to a simmer in a small pot along with a teaspoon of instant coffee.
Place the chocolate (chopped or drops) into a bowl and pour over the hot cream.
Mix well (a whisk is best) until smooth and shiny. Cover and allow to sit outside of the fridge until ready to use on the cake itself.

Guinness Gel

Simply add the Guinness and sugar to a small pot and simmer until it begins to take on a thick syrup consistency.
When this is allowed to cool it will thicken more and allow you to use as a gel on the plate for serving.

To serve:

Once the cake has cooled well, use a bread knife to cut through along the centre to give you a top and bottom layer. Spread a layer of ganache across the top of the bottom layer before placing the top back on. You can add another layer of ganache across the top of the cake, we keep this looking reasonably rough with a few soft peaks across ready for you to sprinkle with toasted almonds and cacao nibs.

To serve, spoon a little of the Guinness gel onto the plate and with the back of the spoon spread it in a circular motion around the outside of the plate. Place the cake in the centre of the plate and finish with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped vanilla cream