{"id":8258,"date":"2011-12-21T12:53:58","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T11:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=8258"},"modified":"2014-08-28T14:29:59","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T12:29:59","slug":"guinness-gingerbread-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=8258","title":{"rendered":"Guinness Gingerbread (or Guinness Chocolate Cake)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"guinnesscakep\"Yesterday I started to feel there was something important missing in all my pre-Christmas baking and cooking frenzy. Gingerbread, of course! When I say “gingerbread” I instantly think “Guinness Gingerbread”. It is soft, fluffy, slightly moist and has a subtle taste, far from the typical overwhelming gingerbread flavours. In short, this is the ultimate gingerbread. The Guinness’s presence is of course undetectable, but adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. \u00a0I don’t know if I ought to mention it, but since the beer is boiled, then baked and all the alcohol evaporates, this cake is suitable for children and for the non-drinkers. This cake is partifularly simple and quick to prepare. If you are not a Guinness fan, the only difficult part is finding someone to finish the can or the bottle content. It would be such a pity to waste the leftovers of this extraordinary beer.<\/p>\n

This delightful cake can be made the day you intend to serve it, but it greatly improves in the fridge, so as soon as it cools down, refrigerate it for at least several hours. (If you manage to leave it overnight, it will be ten times better) and preferably serve it cold. The chocolate frosting should be put as soon as the cake has cooled down. If you prefer a thinner layer, use only 50 g chocolate and 25 g butter. My recipe comes from this blog<\/a>\u00a0(some recipes, like this one, have also English versions) and has been slightly modified.<\/p>\n

TIPS: Of course any dark beer (stout) similar to Guinness can be used, but do not use a light one.<\/p>\n

The recipe calls for black treacle. Unless you\u00a0have already baked with black treacle and like it, use it here, but\u00a0if you have never baked with it, you might not like the bitter slight taste it leaves (I do like it a lot, but wouldn’t make it for guests for example). This is why I advise either light treacle\/molasses or half-light and half-black treacle. Of course if you use black treacle the cake will be very dark (like the one above).<\/p>\n

Preparation: 1 hour<\/p>\n

Ingredients (20 cm x 20 cm baking tin):<\/p>\n

160 ml Guinness stout<\/em><\/p>\n

160 ml treacle (see the TIPS above); if you cannot get treacle\/molasses, you can use agave syrup too (I once used half-agave syrup and half treacle and it was delicious)<\/em><\/p>\n

260g \u00a0flour<\/em><\/p>\n

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa<\/em><\/p>\n

2 flat teaspoons baking soda<\/em><\/p>\n

2 1\/2 teaspoons dried ginger<\/em><\/p>\n

1\/4 teaspoon ground white pepper<\/em><\/p>\n

1 teaspoon cinnamon<\/em><\/p>\n

2 eggs<\/em><\/p>\n

120 g sugar (if you use white sugar, the cake will be lighter)<\/em><\/p>\n

180 ml oil<\/em><\/p>\n

a pinch of salt<\/em><\/p>\n

Chocolate frosting (it is very thin, about 2 mm, but can be easily doubled if you prefer a thicker layer):<\/em><\/p>\n

50-100 g dark chocolate<\/em><\/p>\n

25-60 g butter<\/em><\/p>\n

Heat the oven to 175\u00b0C.<\/p>\n

Bring Guinness to a boil in a small pan. Put aside.<\/p>\n

Mix the flour, the cocoa, the salt, the baking soda and the spices in a bowl.<\/p>\n

In a second bowl mix (with a spoon) the eggs with the sugar, add the treacle, the oil and stir until the mixture is homogenous.<\/p>\n

Add gradually the dry ingredients\u00a0and at the end pour the beer, stirring quickly until the cake mixture is smooth.<\/p>\n

Line a baking dish with baking paper.<\/p>\n

Pour the cake mixture.<\/p>\n

Bake 40 \u2013 50 minutes until a wooden pick put inside comes out almost dry.<\/p>\n

Let it cool down.<\/p>\n

Melt the chocolate with the butter in a pan. When it cools down to the room temperature, spread it over the cake.<\/p>\n

Put the cake into the fridge. (I kept it in the fridge for three days and its taste improved every day).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I started to feel there was something important missing in all my pre-Christmas baking and cooking frenzy. Gingerbread, of course! When I say “gingerbread”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[126,7,132,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8258"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8258"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16722,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8258\/revisions\/16722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}