St Patrick's Day

Well week one is fine, but yesterday the blogger site cut me out so no post, I guess daily was always going to be a bit hard! Today's colour really speaks for itself, being green. That is of course unless you work with food, and all cakes are chocolate but just with a twist for the leprachans out there! Nigella's (goddess of all culinary colour)Guinness Chocolate Cake - now I know a bit about cake but this was defintely in a different league, moist, light and most definitely full of all the best of ingredients, weight watchers read no further... the photos show the evidence and below is the recipe.... SORRY HAD TO ADD A COUPLE OF OMMISSIONS TO THE RECIPE!!

Nigella’s Chocolate Guinness Cake
(a must for St Patrick’s Day)

Quote from the Goddess herself
‘this cake is magnificent in its damp blackness. I can’t say that you can absolutely taste the stout in it, but there is certainly a resonant, ferrous tang which I happen to love. The best way of describing it is to say that it’s like gingerbread without the spices. I wanted to make a cream cheese frosting to echo the pale head that suits on top of a glass of stout. It’s unconventional to add cream but it makes it frothier and lighter which I regard as aesthetically and gastronomically desirable.'

For the Cake:
250ml Guinness 2 eggs
250gm unsalted butter 1 tblsp vanilla extract
75 gm cocoa powder 2 ½ tsp bicarb soda
1 x 140 ml pottle sour cream
400gm caster sugar
275gm flour

For the Topping:
300gm Philadelphia cream cheese
125ml double cream
150g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180dgC, and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.
Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter has melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes, to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake. (at least 30 minutes)
When the cake is cold sit on a flat platter. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and beat them together.
Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

and now...to finish a glass of Ireland's finest, a song and little reel - another perfect day! Ahhhh go the Irish