Guinness Chocolate Cake With Irish Whiskey Ganache

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5 from 2 votes

Guinness Chocolate Cake With Irish Whiskey Ganache

A dark chocolate cake that is moist, and beautifully textured. Makes enough for one 7" bundt pan plus cake bites.

Prep Time20

Cook Time27

Cooling and icing1

Total Time47

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American, Irish

Keyword: birthday, cake, celebration, chocolate, dinner party, guinness, irish, Patrick's Day, Saint, valrhona, whiskey

Servings: servings

Calories: 400kcal

Author: BlakOpal

Ingredients

Cake

1 cup Guinness Stout
1 cup Butter
3/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
2 cups Cake flour
2 cups Super-fine sugar
1-1/2 tsp Baking soda
3/4 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
2/3 cups Creme fraiche
Baking spray with flour

Ganache

8 oz Bittersweet chocolate chopped
2/3 cup Heavy cream
2 Tbsp Butter room temperature
2 tsp Jameson Irish Whiskey

Tools

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Cake Batter

Gather ingredients and tools.
Prepare the bundt pan and cake bite pan by spraying liberally with baking spray.
In a small sauce pan, heat the Guinness and butter until simmering.
Remove from heat and add cocoa powder, stirring with a silicone whisk.
Stir until very smooth. Set aside to cool.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Stir with wire whisk to combine. Set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, with scraper paddles attached, add eggs and creme fraiche. Mix well to combine.
Pour in the cooled guinness-chocolate mixture.
Note: make sure the chocolate mixture is cool, otherwise you will curdle the egg mixture.
Stir just until it is combined. Do not over-mix.
Add the flour mixture in to the bowl and mix only a few turns, until it is combined, but still lumpy. Again, do not over-mix!
Remove bowl from mixer and turn it over with your spatula, scraping up from the bottom to make sure it is all combined. Mixture will be thick and slightly lumpy.
Carefully fill the bundt pan to roughly 2/3 full. You will have batter left-over.
Cover the bundt pan with foil, puffing it up so that it gives the cake room to grow underneath. (Don't wrap tightly.) Set the pan on the sling.
Add a cup of water to the inner pot of your Instant Pot. Set the sling in the pot. Close the lid, and turn the vent to sealing.
Cook on manual, high for 27 minutes. When the time is up, let the pot release pressure naturally for 10 minutes, and then carefully turn the vent to open, releasing the remaining pressure.
While the cake is cooking, use the remaining batter to fill the cake bites. Divide the batter evenly between the bites.
Remove the cake from the pot, and remove the foil. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes.
If the cake has risen above the pan, you can use a knife to slice across the top to make a flat base. Turn the cake out of the pan onto a cooling rack by placing the rack upside down on the cake pan, then flipping the two over together. Remove the cake pan.
Place your cake bite pan, covered with foil, on the silicone sling. Make sure there is still some water in the bottom of the inner pot, and place the cake bites in the pot.
Cook the bites on manual, high for 7 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally until the pin drops. Then remove the bites and let cool on the rack with the cake.

Make The Ganache

Note: you will need to wait until the cakes have completely cooled before you can ice them or the ganache will melt. The ganache works best if you can apply it as soon as it is made, so you can take a break between making the cake and making the ganache.
Gather ganache ingredients.
In a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, add the heavy cream and microwave for a few minutes until it begins to bubble slightly. The cream needs to be very hot, but keep an eye on it or it will boil over.
In a medium-sized glass mixing bowl, add the chopped chocolate.
Add the room-temperature butter, and pour in the hot cream, letting it cover the chocolate. Let it sit for a minute or two to heat through.
Using a silicone whisk, stir the hot cream and melting chocolate and butter until it is very smooth. Scrape along the sides and bottom with the whisk to make sure it is all combined well. Then add the Jameson and combine well.
Stir with a silicone spatula, scraping the sides of the bowl. The ganache should look super smooth and shiny.

Icing The Cakes

Place the cake in the center of your cake plate.
Use an offset spatula or large spoon and pour the icing around the top of the cake, letting it drip down the sides. Use the spatula to spread the icing around to cover all the sides.
Place the cake bites around the sides, and pour icing over those too, smoothing the icing around the sides. When everything has icing on it, you can use the remaining icing (if any), to add more to the main cake, and give it a few 'swirls' on top.
Feel free to grab one of the bite, and let your helpers have one too! That's why we make bonus bites, after all. Enjoy!

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