Chocolate Stout Cake

As I type this, I think of the description of this blog...the words "culinary disasters" is in there, and it's for reasons like tonight. My disaster has nothing to do with the outcome of this recipe, just me being a space cadet and leaving one of the burners on the stove....for like an hour or so....with an aluminum pan lid sitting on top if it....that I just grabbed with my fingers to clear off the stove without knowing the burner under it was still on from before I put the cake in the oven...

It's not every night I can say I sat on the couch watching TV clenching a bag of frozen broccoli.

So, as you all know, I started Weight Watchers. I did good for a week, then events came up, and then my week-long beach vacation came up, and then it was back to work. Needless to say, I've been decent about breakfast and lunch, good with snacks, but dinner...no healthy dinners lately. Well, tonight I made my easy fajitas which were pretty healthy.

 I really wanted to bake tonight, so I looked up some recipes and found one where I had almost everything, just missing a couple of ingredients. Of course, I decided this after I went grocery shopping, so Dan came to my rescue by grabbing me some stout, sour cream and cool whip. He really is the best!

I'm not one for making cakes. This one seemed pretty simple. It only takes one pan and doesn't need to be put together with frosting, nor does it need to be frosted at all. I followed the original recipe, but decided to top mine with a cinnamon powdered sugar dusting. You could serve this cake with fresh berries (recommended by the original website), caramel, a fruit sauce/compote, or better yet - fresh whipped cream. If I was serving this to people immediately and not just consuming it at home/work, I would've made fresh whipped cream, but I don't like when it sits longer than a few hours, so cool whip will do. If you decide to make fresh whipped cream for this, which you should, mix in some cinnamon or some Bailey's with it, and make it a flavored whipped cream. I literally just thought of that right now, and am kicking myself because that's not how I'm going to eat it. If it wasn't 9 o'clock at night I may have made a run for whipping cream and Bailey's.

I liked this cake because it wasn't super sweet, and it was nice and moist. I don't like when a cake is too sweet or you can feel the sugar you chew the cake...uck! You get the hint of stout as well. If you like a sweeter cake, then definitely top it with some caramel or chocolate sauce to give it some extra sweetness!

Lastly, I really need to learn how to do proper food photography.

 

Chocolate Stout Cake
from A Pretty Life in the Suburbs

1 cup stout (I used Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into thirds
2 cups sugar (I only had 1 and 3/4 cup before I ran out)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter the sides of a 9" spring form pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat the stout and butter until butter is melted. Remove from heat.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar and cocoa powder. Add this to the butter mix and mix to combine.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Switch the the whisk attachment and whisk in the chocolate mixture on low speed.
5. In the same bowl you mixed the sugar and cocoa in, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Add this to the stand mixer and whisk on low speed until combined.
6. Pour into the prepared cake pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Top with whatever you like and serve. I mixed together a little powdered sugar and cinnamon and sprinkled it on the cake and top my slice with a dollop of cool whip.