Chocolate Stout Cake

By Peggie

The beer gives this cake a richer, fuller, nuttier flavor while keeping it from leaning too heavily on the sweet side; the sour cream makes it an exceedingly moist cake that is neither mushy or unstructured, without requiring any additional basting, sealing or prayer to keep it on this side of the texture of stale cornbread; and the chocolate ganache on top with a hint of coffee is like the crowning third of the flavor trifecta. This cake kicks butt.

Ingredients

• 1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup sour cream
• 6 ounces (1 cup) good semisweet chocolate chips
• 6 tablespoons heavy cream
• 3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Preparation

Step 1

Cake prep:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a bundt pan well; make sure you get in all of the nooks and crannies. (Some people even go so far as to brush the inside of their bundt pans with melted butter–you cannot be too careful!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan, then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.*

Ganache:
For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

* Update 3/25/08: Previously, the instructions suggested that you cool the cake for only 10 minutes in the pan before flipping it out onto a cooling rack and cooling it the rest of the way. After several conversations with readers/test cooks who found that their cake stuck a little, awesome reader Susan tried to cool the cake completely in the pan before releasing it and nothing stuck. I agree that this might be a better way to go.

Note: The original recipe, at least according to the numerous, amusing comments on Epicurious, makes a stunning amount of batter. I took several writers’ advice and halved it to fit in a bundt pan, and decided to replace their sort of odd frosting suggestion with a basic, failure-free ganache,