HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY: Nigella's Guinness Chocolate Cake

WWW.NIGELLA.COM

I love Ireland. l'm pretty sure our middle son was conceived in Connemara, which would make him half Irish, wouldn't it? This could help him with his Rugby, which he has just started for the first time this week. He certainly needs all the help he can get.

Luckily we have family in Ireland and do get to visit. My nephew and his wife also own a bakery and an award winning cafe in Strandshill, Co. Sligo - so we're even a bit famous there. They've written two really fabulous cookbooks which we use a lot.

I still have time for Nigella Lawson despite her total over exposure and the fact that she has become a parody of herself. She writes well and we've adopted many of her recipes as our own. Today in our bakery we are making her Chocolate Guinness cake to celebrate St. Paddy's Day. There are quite a few Irish on the island. For some strange reason our main mobile phone company (Digicel) is Jamaican Irish - so bet you Mulligan's must be doing well at the moment with it's big screen rugby and Guinness sales. Don't think we have quite the same compliment here in Rosetta.

If you've never tried this cake before - you need to. I'm not a big cake person, but I love this one as it's not too sweet. Of course it dosn't taste like beer - that would be disgusting. Instead it has a moist rich tanginess which is lovely.

Nigella's Guinness Chocolate Cake

Oven temp: 350F and 180C
Line a 23cm springform tin with baking paper

Ingredients
250 ml Guinness
250 grams unsalted butter
75 g cocoa powder
400g caster sugar
142ml sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (the good stuff)
2 large eggs
275g plain flour
2.5 teaspoons bicarb of soda
Icing:
300g cream cheese
150g icing sugar
125ml double cream, whipped

Method

1. Pour the Guinness into a small saucepan and over a low hear melt in the butter.
2. Once melted, whisk in the cocoa powder
3. Seperately, beat the eggs, vanilla and sour cream together and then pur it into the "brown, buttery, beery pan"
4. Finally whisk in the flour and bicarb and pour in the tin
5. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. This is meant to be quite a damp cake, so don't over bake.
6. Once a skewer comes out only slightly moist, put on a rack and allow to completely cool down
7. Whisk cream cheese and sift in icing sugar. Add in whipped cream. I do all of this in the mixer.
8. Spread icing over cake to resemble the white foam on a pint of the famous stout.

Go to the pub or Mulligans or the Rosetta Hotel and pretend you are in Ireland.