Guinness, Cream & Coffee Cake

If you like Guinness, coffee and cake, you’re going to like this.

ingredients

Serves 10- 12

•  4 tsp instant coffee

• 50ml dark rum

• 100ml Guinness

• 250g butter, cubed plus extra to grease

• 50g cocoa powder

• 200g caster sugar

• 150g soft light brown sugar

• 3 eggs, beaten

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 150ml sour cream

• 280g plain flour

• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

  For the icing

• 2 1/2 tbsp instant coffee

• 160ml double cream

• 70g butter, room temperature

• 400g icing sugar
  

instructions

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter two deep 20cm cake tins and line with baking paper.

 Dissolve the coffee with 150ml boiling water in a large pan and pour in the rum and Guinness. Bring to a simmer and stir in the butter and warm until just melted. Take off the heat and whisk in the cocoa and sugar, followed by the eggs, then the vanilla and sour cream. Finally, whisk in ½ teaspoon of salt, flour and bicarbonate, and whisk until smooth.

 Divide the batter between the tins and bake 30-40 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 15 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, combine the coffee with 1 tablespoon of boiling water and allow to cool. Beat 100ml of the cream until you have soft peaks and put to one side for a moment.

In a large bowl, beat the butter until soft, then sift in the sugar and a pinch of salt and add the cooled coffee and the remaining 60ml of unbeaten cream. Whisk until combined.

Take a third of the icing and whisk in the reserved beaten cream. Use this to spread over the bottom half of the cake and gently place the other half on top.

Spread the remaining icing on top, using as little or as much of the icing as you fancy. Top with something crunchy, such as chopped walnuts, crushed Crunchie bars or scrunched-up cornflakes combined fried with butter and sugar.