Guinness Stout Layer Cake
Ready In: 1 hr 30 mins
Serves: 16
Ingredients
Drizzling Syrup
- 1⁄3 cup Guinness stout
- 1⁄3 cup dark brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Cake
- 2⁄3 cup Guinness stout (measured after foam has subsided)
- 2⁄3 cup currants
- 1⁄3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, cut into small pieces
- 3⁄4 cup buttermilk
- 1 3⁄4 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- cooking spray
- 2⁄3 cup butter, softened
- 4 eggs
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 cup red currant jelly, warmed
- bittersweet icing (See recipe)
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
- To prepare syrup, combine all ingredients in a small, heavy saucepan, whisking until smooth. Heat over medium heat, until sugar dissolves and syrup is smooth.
- To prepare cake, pour stout over currants; cover and soak until plump.
- Drain currants, reserving stout. Add stout to a small saucepan. Whisk in 1/3 cup cocoa and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat; add semisweet chocolate, stirring until chocolate melts. Cool slightly. Stir in buttermilk.
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Combine 2 tablespoons cocoa, 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons flour. Coat two 8- or 9-inch square or round cake pans with cooking spray; dust with cocoa mixture.
- Beat butter with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Gradually beat in 1/4 cups sugar until well blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in vanilla.
- Combine 2 cups flour with baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with chocolate mixture, stirring until blended. (Batter may look curdled.) Stir in currants.
- Divide batter between pans. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans on a wire rack 10 minutes; invert onto rack.
- Poke tops of cake layers with a skewer or toothpick. Spoon Drizzling Syrup over tops. Place one layer on a platter. Spread warmed jelly over layer on the platter. Chill 30 minutes. Cover jelly with about a quarter of the Bittersweet Icing. Place second layer on top.
- Ice top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing. Press nuts into sides of cake.
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