Two months ago, I was craving chocolate cake. I don’t love baking, and I don’t even love cake—unless it’s the chocolate cake my mom made for my birthday every year growing up. Back home, my go-to dessert is a classic boxed brownie mix (don’t get me started on homemade brownies), but I never make them here since we don’t have good old Betty Crocker. Usually, I just keep some ice cream in the house in case we want a small sweet treat.
I’m fairly certain the chocolate cake idea lodged itself in my brain after scrolling NYT Cooking and falling down a chocolate rabbit hole. I came across a recipe called Chocolate Guinness Cake, and it piqued my interest. Another NYT recipe uses Guinness in a barbecue sauce that I make all the time, so I saved the cake recipe and moved on. With Thanksgiving approaching, I knew pies would be consuming every ounce of energy, butter, flour, and sugar I had.
Last Saturday, I jumped up from the couch and decided it was imperative that Pizza Saturday include a chocolate cake for dessert. Since Cool Whip doesn’t exist here, it had to be the Guinness cake—not my mom’s. I grabbed the keys, ran to the store, and within thirty minutes, I was baking the cake.
The Results
First of all, there was a very confusing “tip” noting that the original recipe was featured in Nigella Lawson’s cookbook Feast, using almost twice the butter. I chose to ignore that tidbit and figured I’d circle back if needed. (I needed to.)
The cake was… a little dry, to be honest. Based on the photos, I expected a very dense, moist cake. It looked that way—just didn’t taste like it.
Second, we messed up the icing. The NYT Cooking directions were overly simplified, and since I don’t bake often, I didn’t realize I needed to fully whip the heavy cream before combining it with the confectioners’ sugar and cream cheese. A very stupid mistake that resulted in a liquid-y icing, not a “frothy” looking one.
The Surprise
After Saturday night’s disappointment, I nearly forgot about the cake on Sunday. Then, halfway through a Christmas movie, I thought, what the hell—could it be any worse?
To our surprise, it was 5000000x better. It was incredible. Exactly the chocolate cake I thought it would be. We were shocked and ate the whole thing (just kidding).
Final Thoughts
All in all, the cake was delicious. Better than I could’ve imagined. My advice? Follow the original recipe from Nigella Lawson, but use 150 grams of butter instead of 250 grams. And just to be safe, make the cake day before you plan to serve it. Let the cake sit in the fridge overnight (without the icing), even though I still don’t fully understand why this works.
It was also such an easy cake to whip up, not a complicated or long recipe to follow. If (when) I make it again, I’ll update this once I figure out what else is going on behind the scenes.
Enjoy!
