Chocolate Guinness Celebration Cake

Recently a work colleague celebrated her wedding anniversary and I thought it would be nice to make a celebration cake for it. As she's Irish I thought a chocolate guinness cake would be perfect and the happy couple were absolutely delighted. I made a double recipe so had enough for 1 big cake and 20 cupcakes. I think almost everyone had 2 cupcakes that day and I've had repeated requests for this cake since especially from those that missed out. This cake ranks in the top 5 that I've baked so far for the team this year and trust me I've baked a lot of cakes! 

Just to jazz up the cake a little, I decided to make chocolate decorations in the shape of champagne bottles using a mould I bought from Lakeland. I made 3 different types of chocolate but unfortunately could not get the white ones out of the mould. I also struggled with the milk ones. Luckily, I had enough to decorate the cake but not completely cover it as originally planned. Has anyone used this mould before? I tempered the chocolate as instructed, filled it and allowed it to set before turning them out. No amount of tapping and coaxing would get the other bottles out. 

As this is a chocolate celebration cake, I'm sending it to We Should Cocoa hosted by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog. Sadly, we bid farewell to WSC co-creator Chele from Chocolate Teapot who has retired from blogging.  We Should Cocoa turns 3 this month so Choclette has asked us to create a chocolate showstopper cake inspired by the first episode of the Great British Bake Off. This is not quite up to par with the showstoppers on the show but it's a great celebration cake so I hope it will suffice.

 new mould from lakeland

 I tempered 3 different chocolates 

 made lots of cupcakes... 

 and 1 large cake 

 cover liberally with frosting  

 I love the little chocolate bottles! 

For the cake
250ml guinness
250g butter
75 cocoa powder
400g caster sugar
142mls sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

For the topping
300g cream cheese
150g icing sugar
125mls double or whipping cream

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Butter and line a 23cm springform tin. 
• Pour Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add butter - in spoons or slices - and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. 
• Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and the pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. 
• Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 45 minutes to an hour. 
• Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack as it is quite a damp cake. 
• To make the topping, lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth.
• Sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. 
• Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. 
• Ice the top of the black cake so it resembles the frothy top of Guinness.