Irish Chocolate-Guinness Cake with Malt Buttercream

The dark horse of St. Patrick's Day. This chocolate-Guinness cake blows them all out of the water, with some help from a gorgeous malty buttercream.

I used to teach this Chocolate-Guinness Cake on my Irish cookery classes and it was always a smash hit. The batter is incredibly adaptable - making cupcakes, 8-inch layer cakes or a single 10-inch cake with buttercream slapped onto the top, if you really hate anything reminiscent of cake decoration. Whatever you have time for, this recipe is a great plug-in and I’m so pleased to share it with you this St. Patrick’s Day. My method of making this cake involves a Guinness reduction. Don’t worry, it’s nothing technical. It takes half an hour of hands-off time and it thanks you with an intense, unmistakable Guinness flavour in the cake. The buttercream also has a malty edge courtesy of malt drink powder (Horlicks for me!) The malt complements the Guinness flavour in the sponge extremely well, but I have a long relationship with malt. It was my mam’s craving when I was a baby her tummy, and I apparently enjoyed malt so much that I wasn’t born until 4 weeks after my due date, and weighing in at a whopping 11lbs too! I can’t guarantee this cake won’t befall you the same fate. Let’s go!