Not A Cupcake: Guinness-Gingerbread Birthday Cake

For our dad's birthday I (Kitty) wanted to make a Guinness cake. Mum had made cupcakes in the same vein the year before but I wanted to do a cake. Originally, it was going to be a sculpted cake, but this did not work out for myriad of reasons. But things rarely do when I'm in the kitchen, I just kind of roll with the punches and make stuff up as I go. It is an endless source of consternation for my by-the-book sister.

It took me forever to find a chocolate free recipe (Daddy's allergic) so I ended up just asking Mum for the one she used.

The work-station set up, with separate sheets for the cake, decorator icing and the Bailey’s cream cheese frosting so Sara and I could divide and conquer the tasks. Oh my painstakingly clean kitchen! Our tower of ingredients was quite impressive and almost didn’t fit under the microwave oven.

I have included the recipes step by step with the related photos, in bold text. There are also links directly to the recipe’s from the source so you can print them off more coherently if that’s your game.

Onward, to cake!

I made the batter first as it took the longest. The Guinness-molasses base has to be boiled then cooled for an hour.

Dry ingredients, wet ingredients and my bottle of Guinness.

RECPIE: GUINNESS-GINGERBREADY CAKE 

**technically, this is for cupcakes. I  tripled the batter to make a two-layer sheet cake**

            From Food.com 

Ingredients:  

Serves: 18

• 1 cup Guinness stout
• 1 cup light molasses
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Prep Time: 1 1/2 hrs
Total Time: 2 hrs

1. 1 Preheat oven to 180C (350°F). Line 2 muffin trays with 18 cupcake liners.
2. 2 Bring stout and molasses to boil in heavy medium saucepan over high heat.
3. 3 Remove from heat; stir in baking soda.
4. 4 Let stand 1 hour to cool completely.
5. 5 Whisk flour and next 6 ingredients in large bowl to blend.
6. 6 Whisk eggs and both sugars in medium bowl to blend.
7. 7 Whisk in oil, then stout mixture.
8. 8 Gradually whisk stout-egg mixture into flour mixture. Stir in fresh ginger if adding it in cake.
9. 9 Divide batter among prepared cupcake liners.
10. 10 Bake until tester inserted into centers of cakes comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
11. 11 Cool cupcakes on racks. Allow to cool completely before icing.

I love extreme close-ups of food, is it obvious yet?

I cannot describe how good this SMELLED or how good it TASTED. Richly spicy  with the distinct after-taste of Guinness. I could have just eaten the batter and been absolutely okay with it never turning into a cake, but then Sara wouldn’t have anything to do.

Decorator Icing! Typical pink 14 year old girl nails!

RECPIE: DECORATOR ICING

            From Food.com

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons milk
• 2 teaspoons light corn syrup (Karo)
• 2 tablespoons softened butter (NO MARGARINE)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• food coloring (if using liquid coloring, may need to add a little more confectioners sugar to bring to decorating c)

Directions:

Prep Time: 10 mins
Total Time: 10 mins

1. 1 Place sugar into mixing bowl.
2. 2 Combine milk, corn syrup and vanilla, and blend.
3. 3 Add liquid mixture to powdered sugar and mix thoroughly.
4. 4 Add softened butter and blend until thoroughly incorporated.
5. 5 Divide frosting into several cups, and add food coloring to each. If using liquid coloring, add a little more powdered sugar until it reaches good spreading consistency.
6. 6 Spread onto cookie with knife, or place in zip-loc sandwith bags with the corner nipped off 1/16" to pipe onto cookies.
7. 7 Decorate with sprinkles or colored sugars.
8. 8 Once cookies are decorated, place on flat surface to allow frosting to dry. Store cookies in covered container.
9. 9 NOTE: Differences in humidity may require more or less liquids to make a good consistency frosting. Sugar can be added or milk lessened to achieve the best consistency.

Practice piping out the logo. We finally got an actual decorator kit.

Toucans are better than one!

After this there’s a bit of a gap on account of Sara having to go somewhere for…something so I was working by myself and couldn’t take pictures. So there’s not a picture of the cake baked or anything but I can say it was a two-layer massive brick of delicious, black gingerbread. I didn’t even frost between the layers. Sheer mass and the curious sticky quality of gingerbread kept it together just fine.

There’s also no pictures of me making the Bailey’s frosting. It was a bit of a disaster I only narrowly salvaged. Originally I was going for brown, but because Daddy can’t have chocolate, I was relying on color theory to get me from a 4-color box of food dye to Guinness brown. Failing that, I went for a nice Irishy green that’s approximately the same color as the average Guinness-themed t-shirt.  So at least it matched. And was also delicious.

Re-piping designs!

RECPIE: BAILEY’S CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

From Food.com

Ingredients:

Servings: 18 cupcakes or ((1 2 layer sheet cake))

• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 3 -4 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

Directions:

Prep Time: 10 mins
Total Time: 20 mins

1. 1 In a medium bowl, blend together cream cheese, butter, and Bailey's. Gradually add powdered sugar, mixing well until it?s all incorporated. Use immediately. The frosting will harden in the fridge, so plan on bring it back to room temperature if you must refrigerate it before frosting the cupcakes. 

Icing and touch-ups were added by Sara when she came home. I put text on it in the vein of “Happy Birthday, It’s a Lovely Day for A Guinness” but my hands were kind of shaky so I have refrained from displaying that disaster of draftsmanship.

Daddy, being presented with his cake :)

Over all impression of this project: This cake was DENSE. Like, high-insulation, building material dense. I can see why it's supposed to be made into cupcakes. I think I would also do it in a round format next time, but I prefer taller round cakes, really. But it had fantastic, rich flavor and the Bailey's cream cheese frosting is an nice, tart compliment to the heavy cake. I also prefer this decorator frosting for future decorations as it tastes better than the royal icing.

-Kitty

Photos by Kitty