This Chocolate Guinness Cake Recipe with velvety smooth Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting yields a moist, tender cake that’s deeply chocolatey with malty, roasty flavor notes.
As a food blogger, it’s a little ridiculous how many recipes are on my “to-make” list.
But inspiration is everywhere! Movies, books, magazines, other food blogs.
Meals I remember my mom making as a kid. Foods that my grandmother telling me she enjoyed as a youngster.
Familiar seasonal dishes and celebratory foods, and also new food combinations I dream up.
The hardest part is keeping up with my ever-growing list!
I’ve had Chocolate Guinness Cake on list of recipes to make for a very long time now. Recently I bought a four-pack of Guinness to make Guinness Beef Stew and I was left with three cans of Guinness. It was the perfect excuse to make this cake, and just in time for St. Paddy’s Day!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Complex chocolate flavor. This cake is rich and chocolatey with malty, roasty flavor notes.
- Awesome texture. It has a moist and tender crumb that your fork will sink right into!
- Cream cheese buttercream. This decadent buttercream is aromatic with vanilla bean, and slightly reminiscent of the foamy head on top of freshly-poured stout.
The Best Chocolate Guinness Cake Recipe
Ingredients in This Chocolate Guinness Cake
- Flour
- Cocoa powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Eggs
- Granulated sugar
- Light brown sugar
- Avocado oil or vegetable oil
- Greek yogurt
- Pure vanilla extract
- Guinness Draught Stout
Step-by-Step Instructions
Stir or whisk together all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Add the eggs and granulated sugar, and brown sugar to a large bowl.
Whisk until thick and creamy. Make sure the cat doesn’t dive in face-first, lol!
Whisk in the oil, yogurt, and vanilla, and then the Guinness.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and whisk to combine.
The batter will be bubbly from the beer.
Grab a cake pan that’s buttered, floured, and lined with a piece of parchment in the bottom.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
And then turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.
Once the cake is cool, make the frosting!
Get out all the ingredients for the Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting.
Cream together the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla bean paste.
Add the powdered sugar.
Beat the mixture with a handheld electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
Frost the cooled cake with the buttercream.
Slice it up and dig in!
Chocolate Guinness Cake FAQs
What Does Guinness Cake Taste Like?
Chocolate Guinness Cake is deeply chocolatey with malty, roasty flavor notes and a moist and tender crumb. The rich cream cheese buttercream is aromatic with vanilla bean, and slightly reminiscent of the foamy head on top of freshly-poured stout.
If you’re wondering if this Guinness Cake tastes like beer, the answer is not entirely.
Stout adds a complexity to this recipe that provides malty, hoppy, roasted flavor notes.
You will be able to taste it, but it’s not like sitting down to a mug (or stein) of Guinness. Instead, it’s much more mellow.
The slight hoppy bitterness of this Guinness Cake is accented perfectly with a sweet Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting. Together, they make a lovely, balanced flavor pairing.
What Does Beer Do to Cake?
Adding stout to a chocolate cake is not all that different from adding coffee, although the stout provides a maltiness that coffee lacks.
Basically, Guinness enhances the flavor nuances in chocolate, and helps pull out the different notes that are already there.
What is Stout Beer?
Stout is a type of dark beer made with roasted malt or roasted barley and hops, water, and yeast. In general, stouts are dark and rich with a roasty, malty flavor and notes of coffee and/or chocolate. Historically, stout referred to a strong, highly alcoholic beer.
There is a variety of different types of stouts based on other ingredients that are used during the brewing process. A few examples are oatmeal stout, milk stout, chocolate stout, and coffee stout.
You can read more about stouts on Britannica, Vinepair, and Fandom.
What Can I Substitute for Stout in This Recipe?
Instead of Guinness Draught Stout in this recipe, you can use 1/2 cup of coffee. Cool it to room temperature and leave everything else in the recipe the same.
More Dessert Recipes with Guinness
- Vanilla Bean Guinness Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream
- Guinness Chocolate Cookies
- Fudgy Guinness Brownies with Dark Chocolate Ganache
- Guinness Chocolate Pudding
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xoxo, Faith
Chocolate Guinness Cake Recipe with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Chocolate Guinness Cake:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- 1/2 cup avocado oil or vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup full-fat unflavored Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup Guinness Draught Stout
Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 4 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 2 cups powdered sugar
Other:
- Butter for the pan
- All-purpose flour for the pan
Instructions
For the Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9-inch cake pan. Place a piece of parchment paper that’s been trimmed to fit in the bottom.
- Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Whisk in the oil, yogurt, and vanilla extract, and then whisk in the Guinness.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and whisk to combine, being careful not to over-mix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes.
- Run a paring knife along the outside of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack, let it cool for 5 minutes, and then peel off the parchment paper.
- Cool the cake completely.
For the Frosting:
- Once the cake is cool, make the frosting. Cream together the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla bean paste in a large bowl. Add the powdered sugar and use a hand-held electric beater to mix until smooth and creamy.
To Frost the Cake:
- Place the cake on a cake plate or cake stand and top with the frosting, spreading it around. This makes enough frosting to frost the top and sides of a 9-inch cake, but I like to pile it on thick and only frost the top.
Faith’s Tips
- Storage: Store this cake wrapped in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- Frosting Tip: To make this frosting even more special, I like to add 1/8 teaspoon almond extract and 1/8 teaspoon butter extract. I find that it simulates the flavor of Irish cream!
Nutrition
I’m Faith Gorsky, the writer, cook, and photographer behind An Edible Mosaic. My goal is to inspire you to get in the kitchen and try something new! Feel free to 
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