Dominion Oak Barrel Stout Chocolate Cake
Dominion Oak Barrel Stout lends itself so well to many recipes but this one, originally created by Vicky Bradford is one of our favourites.
It's beautifully balanced; rich and chocolatey but without being too sweet. The flavour of the stout is present in a subtle way but it's not overpowering and will be enjoyed by adults and children alike. The icing made with cream cheese works so much better than butter icing and gives it a slightly sour tang which matches perfectly with the stouty-chocolatey richness. It's nice and easy to make and leaves you some stout left in the bottle to enjoy drinking whilst the cake bakes!
Ingredients
- 125 ml Dominion Oak Barrel Stout
- 125g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 40g good quality cocoa powder (I use Green & Blacks)
- 200g light brown soft sugar
- 75ml sour cream
- 1 large free range egg
- 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 140g plain flour
- 1 heaped teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 180g cream cheese (icing)
- 50g icing sugar (icing)
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a round springform tin. The mixture can be quite wet so you may want to put this on a baking tray to avoid any mixture burning on the bottom of your oven (speaking from the voice of experience).
In a large saucepan, heat the Dominion Oak Barrel Stout and butter. When the butter has melted, turn off the heat and whisk in the sugar, cocoa and flour.
In a separate bowl, mix the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla extract and then pour these into the hot beer mixture. Once everything is combined, pour the cake batter into the tin and bake for 35/40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. I usually leave the cake to cool in the tin, mainly because I can't cope with the crumbs under the cooling rack.
Wait until the cake is cold before you ice it to avoid the icing melting. Mix the cream cheese and icing sugar together and spread on the top of a cake with a palette knife.
The recipe Vicky kindly sent us was double the quantities listed above but to be honest we were a bit nervous about having that much chocolate cake around begging to be eaten... Having said that, as soon as it was gone we wanted more!
So if you want a nice big cake simply double the ingredients, use a 23cm tin and bake it for about 45 mins.
Enjoy baking and send us your pics!