Guinness Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

For St. Patrick's Day, I thought I would bake something close to my heritage. I chose a recipe featured in a recent edition of People Magazine.  It is a chocolate guinness cake from Brian Leth, at Vinegar Hill House in Brooklyn.  He says "It's moist, dense but not too sweet."

I used a springform pan for the first time in a LONG time, so that was nice.  The batter starts out by melting 10 T of butter in a bottle of Guinness:


Cake ready to be baked:

Finished cake (pre-iced):

     I realized it didn't rise evenly along the sides, creating a dome effect I would have rather not have had.  I think the answer would be to next time not butter the edges of the springform and trust that the butter-rich batter wouldn't stick.  I think the lack of friction long the sides is why the edges didnt rise "or climb" up the sides of the pan.  All in all, it wasn't too bad looking, just a bit thin on the edges.

Iced cake with cream cheese frosting:

I know it looks like a ton of icing.  It is.  My mother was over my shoulder and insisted I use all of it. It took everything I could to stop her from making me put green sprinkles on it.  lol

Brian Leth is right, it is a super dense and moist cake, and not too sweet....the cream cheese icing I made a little sweeter than I usually do, to help it out some.  Not too bad of an attempt, next time, less or no butter on the edges of the spring form, and less icing on the cake (lol)

Well received by guest taster, John

Apologies for not having a direct link to the recipe, like I usually do; was unable to find one.

Hope to update more regularly folks,!  Culinary school has really been intense lately :)

-The Closet Baker