Yesterday, September 24th, was Arthur Guinness’s birthday. Some of you may know him as the founder of the Guinness brewery. As this year also marks the 250th anniversary of Guinness, I felt that I needed to do something special to mark the occasion. As it was a birthday after all, what better tribute than a cake.  I already had a rum cake recipe, so I decided to adapt it to the task. Since Guinness and chocolate go well together, I also decided to replace the standard yellow cake mix with a chocolate variety.

The Recipe

Ingredients:
For the cake:

1 cup chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts
1 18-1/2 ounce chocolate cake mix*
1 1-3/4 ounce (4-serving size) instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup Guinness Draught**

For the glaze:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup Guinness Draught, seperated**

*: I used the most basic ‘chocolate’ cake I could find, thinking that anything more complex, like super fudge supreme or anything of that nature would lend too strong of a chocolate flavour to the cake.

**: You could probably use Guinness Extra Stout instead of the Draught, but I prefer the draft. The extra CO2 provided by the widget seems to make for a slightly sweeter beer, and may have even helped lead to a lighter texture than I would have otherwise had.

Preparation:
Cake: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Sprinkle nuts on bottom of pan. Combine all cake ingredients. Beat for 2 minutes on high with electric mixer. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool in pan. Invert on serving plate. Prick top with fork. Drizzle glaze over top of cake. Use brush or spoon to put extra dripping back on cake.

Glaze: Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in 1/2 cup Guinness and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in remaining 1/4 cup Guinness

My thoughts:

While the cake didn’t end up with as strong of a Guinness flavour as rum cakes normally have rum flavour, it had a very nice mix of chocolate and malty flavours. I think the only modification I’ll try next time is replacing the water in the batter with Guinness, giving a full cup of Guinness to the batter.