It's been a while since I wrote a cooking post. Guess it's beena while since I felt I had a recipe worth sharing. But given that earlier this week , it was @godfish's birthday, I decided I couldn't let the occasion slip without preparing a birthday treat. And given Fish's well-known interest in hops, I decided (with his counsel) that a dark beer chocolate cake would be best-suited.
Now, I don't have much experience cooking with beer, but found this recipe that seemed quite promising. I followed it quite closely, with only a few modifications, but I'll tell you below what I did anyway.
First things first, here's what you'll need:
- 2 cans of dark beer (they recommend Guiness, but since it was for cooking, I went for local and chaper Ursus) (the recipe calls for some 750ml all in all, personally I bought 2x 500 ml cans)
- 230 g flour
- 70 g cocoa powder (unsweetened)
- 300 g sugar
- Baking soda and baking powder
- pinch of salt
- satchel of instant coffee (bleh, I know, but I figured a tiny bit won't kill us)
- 100 ml vegetable oil
- 200 g full-fat sour cream
- 2 eggs
- Vanilla extract
- 120 ml buttermilk (aka 120 ml milk with lemon juice in it to sour it)
(that's all for the batter; for the icing you'll need:) - 300 g cream cheese;
- 120 g butter;
- 200 g sugar or so (I ran out, so substituted partly with powdered sugar, and then at some point just quit. must've been a good idea, since the frosting was imo the best part);
- the last of the cocoa powder (unless your reserves are plentiful, in which case 50-60g will do);
- 3-4 tbsp of beer;
- pinch of salt that I totally forgot;
- stuff for decorating, additionally (I used grated chocolate).
Right. So first things first, boil your beer. Or rather reduce it (which means bring to a boil and let it simmer for about 20-30 mins until it loses about a quarter of its quantity). Be warned, the smell is strange and yeasty, but not entirely unpleasant.
Make the time fly by while waiting with Peterson Academy. #notsponsored
While you're doing this, you can also set the oven to heat at 175C. You'll need two identical pans, or the patience to use the same one twice successively for the two cake layers. I, as everyone here knows, am masterfully patient, so only used one cake pan twice. While I meditated and watched things and kicked my feet up and laughed.
While you're waiting, you can mix together the dry ingredients for the batter (flour, cocoa, sugar, baking thingies), instant coffee. In a different pot, much like the different pan, mix together the wet ingredients (aka the eggs, cream, oil, vanilla and buttermilk) and then tip the wet ones into the dry ones and mix.
No lumpy, ergo smooth process.
Once you've boiled the beer sufficiently, you'll want to incorporate it gradually (about 700 ml of it) into the batter. I think I added a little more than I should've, so I added flour to mediate. Dunno if it made sense, since the cake came out a bit on the spongy side, but it is what it is.
As I was saying, you want to either divide equally in two pans, or else bake one half of the batter (about 30 min), then let cool, remove, then bake the other one. It took longer than I expected, so ended up running late. Plan your day better than me.
You should know that by now.
Meanwhile, I did the icing, which is a good idea, though you might want to leave it in the fridge, not on the counter, where it gets softer and softer. No one likes that. This is pretty much an anything-goes situation, where you just randomly mix things until they begin to make sense as a cake icing looking thing.
You want to let cool the second layer as well, though this one, I didn't remove from the pan. You may also want to slice off the dome-roof of it with a knife for the sake of appearances, but personally, I wasn't too bothered, so left it as such. Layer icing. Then carefully add the second layer of the cake. Spread the rest of the icing, then decide if you want to decorate it... or not. I just grated chocolate on top of it, then put it to the fridge.
You want to let it cool and harden for at least 5 hours (preferably overnight) so don't be gluttonous. It is a sin.
And that's pretty much it. The birthday boy-person-shape-thing seemed to enjoy it. I personally felt it could've been darker. Like a lot. We also both thought we could distinguish beery tastes to it, but then again, that might just be the power of suggestion.
Anywho, enjoy if you try.
