Name: Chocolate Stout Layer Cake
Prep time: 60 min
Cook time: 26 min
Total time: 86 min
Yield: 10
Ingredients: For the Cake; 2 cups Irish stout (my preference is the classic Guinness); 2 fingers orange peel, preferably organic or unwaxed, no white pith; 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp, cubed, plus a little for greasing cake pans; ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder; 1 cup granulated sugar; ½ cup dark brown sugar; ⅔ cup sour cream; 2 large eggs; 2 teaspoons Cognac Barrel-Aged Pure Madagascar Vanilla Extract; 1⅔ cups all-purpose flour; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon baking powder; ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt; 1¼ cups heavy cream; 1 tablespoon powdered sugar; ⅔ cup mascarpone, room temp; 3 tablespoons fine-cut orange marmalade; A pinch of salt; Zest of ½ orange, coarse

Sweets

Chocolate Stout Layer Cake

Author: Mary DiSomma

This chocolate stout layer cake is rich and moist. The deep, malty complexity it gets from the Irish stout is what makes it truly special. I use Guinness because I love its notes of coffee and caramel and its subtle bitterness too. Believe it or not, it pairs wonderfully with chocolate!

I got creative with this one and made the frosting to resemble the frothy head on a fresh pint of Guinness. This is sure to be a popular St. Patrick’s Day dessert, but I’d make it again next time I want something to impress my guests. Let’s get baking!

Ingredient Tips

Not really—at least not in the way you might expect. A good chocolate and stout cake won’t taste like you just poured beer in your dessert. The stout actually enhances the cocoa, deepening its rich chocolate flavor. It’s kind of like when you add espresso to a chocolate cake—it doesn’t taste like coffee, it tastes more chocolatey. This chocolate cake with stout beer is balanced and slightly bittersweet, and it has a deliciously tender crumb.

As in many recipes with an alcohol ingredient, most of the alcohol bakes off during the cooking process. Simmering and reducing the stout will cook off even more alcohol, leaving you with tons of flavor and none of the booziness.

Of course I love using Guinness for my classic Guinness stout chocolate cake recipe, but any Irish stout will work just as well. Look for something dark, malty, and not too hoppy. The key is choosing a beer with chocolate and coffee notes. That’s why I made mine a chocolate Guinness cake recipe—Guinness just fits the bill!

I like to make this cake around the end of wintertime, the same time of year I start to get excited for spring. The marmalade cream in this recipe is a wonderful way to bridge that gap. It's delicate and sweet—so it helps me look forward to the brighter days ahead.

My recipe for orange marmalade cream frosting calls for fine-cut marmalade, which is different from regular orange marmalade. The fine-cut version has smaller, more delicate pieces of peel, while traditional marmalade has larger pieces and sometimes even whole strips of peel. Regular marmalade varies in its sweetness level, but fine-cut is more consistently sweet without being overpowering. For this cake, fine-cut marmalade blends seamlessly into the mascarpone cream for lots of citrus flavor without the overly chunky texture.

If you can find Seville orange marmalade, definitely pick that one! Seville oranges have some natural bitterness, and that bittersweet quality balances out the rich chocolate really well. Any good-quality marmalade will work, but Seville adds a special quality.

Preparation + Preservation Tips

Reducing the stout isn’t essential—but it adds a lot of depth. Simmering the beer down concentrates its flavor and, in my opinion, makes this stout beer chocolate cake even more delicious.

If you’re short on time, you can skip the reduction. If you choose not to reduce it, use one cup of stout instead of two and heat it up just enough to melt the butter. Your cake will still turn out great!

The acidity in the stout reacts with baking soda to help leaven this batter, so the finished cake will be soft and have a delicate crumb. When it’s done, it should spring back gently when pressed in the center, and a toothpick inserted should come out clean. A few moist crumbs on the toothpick are okay, as long as you don’t see raw batter stuck to it. You do want your chocolate & Guinness cake to be moist, so avoid overbaking.

This chocolate stout cake keeps beautifully for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. The flavors actually deepen overnight.

You have a couple options here. You could make the recipe as written, enjoy one layer of the cake, and freeze the other for later. Or you can freeze everything and assemble later. If you plan to freeze half the cake (a single layer), make sure to halve the cream ingredients. Top each slice with a nice dollop just before serving instead of building a layer cake.

Now, for the freezing part: Let the baked layers cool completely. Wrap each layer tightly in plastic wrap, or place a sheet of parchment between the two layers and wrap them together. Add a layer of foil over the plastic and freeze for up to 2 months. A day before you’re ready to assemble or serve your cake, thaw overnight in the refrigerator, still wrapped, to preserve moisture and structure. On the day of serving, you can go ahead and make the cream—I don’t recommend doing that part in advance.

You can bake the layers 1 to 2 days in advance and store them wrapped in plastic wrap. Room temperature or chilled is fine. The cream can be made a few hours ahead and kept refrigerated. As you can see, this chocolate stout cake recipe is a wonderful make-ahead option for St. Patrick’s Day gatherings or dinner parties.

Sort of. You can prepare the marmalade cream a few hours ahead and keep it chilled before assembling your cake. I don’t recommend making it farther ahead than that.

Extra Tips