We all LOVE LOVE LOVE this cake. I make this at least a few times a year.  This is another Nigella recipe (from her book Feast) and it is my favourite.  It is a delicious dense dark moist chocolate cake topped with a very creamy smooth cream cheese icing.

Preheat your oven to 180C, which I think is 350F.  Start with a can of Guinness.  This is what happens if you are unprepared when you open it and don’t have a pot ready to pour it in. I lost a little bit.

Pour the can of Guinness (250ml) into a pot and add butter (250g) heat until melted.  I just realized, while typing this, that I just poured in the whole can. I think that was quite a bit more than I needed.  Which explains why the batter was wetter than I remembered it being and it took longer to bake.  But it turned out amazing!

Add sugar (400g) and cocoa powder (75g)

Whisk this together while heating

Take that off the stove and let cool a couple of minutes, in a separate bowl whisk together 142ml sour cream, 2 eggs and 1Tbsp vanilla

Pour that mixture into the chocolatey beer mixture.

To that add 275g of flour and 2&1/2 tsp baking soda

Pour batter into prepared (greased with a round of parchment lining the bottom) springform pan (8 or 9″)

Place the pan on a cookie sheet, just in case of leakage.

Bake for about 45-60 minutes until done. Don’t worry about the cracks in the top, those nooks and crannies will get filled with the delicious cream cheese icing.

Let cool completely before icing.  Once the cake was at room temperature I wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator overnight and did the icing the next day.

The cream cheese icing is amazing but very simple.  Beat together 300g room temperature cream cheese with 150g icing sugar and 125ml whipping cream.  I used a little less that that amount of whipping cream as I found the icing was getting too liquid.  Use your judgement.

Dollop the icing on top of the cake and spread to the edges.

It kind of looks like a pint of Guinness!

I think this cake would also be great without the icing or just a sifting of icing sugar.