With St. Patrick’s Day being next week, your social media feeds are probably starting to fill up with green and rainbow-colored treats, homemade Shamrock Shakes, and a variety of recipes with Irish cream liqueur or stout beer in them. Today, we’re joining in on the fun with this recipe for the best Chocolate Stout Cake!
This chocolate cake recipe will be your new go-to if you don’t have one already. It comes together quickly and creates a cake with the perfect texture. It’s moist and fudgey, but it’s packed with flavor.
The stout flavor comes from a stout reduction, which basically involves simmering stout beer in a saucepan on the stove until it’s been reduced to half the amount you started with. You’ll start with two cups and let it simmer away until you’re left with one cup. This adds more stout flavor with less liquid, which helps keep the cake batter the right consistency. But don’t let any of this intimidate you! You can reduce the stout beer a day ahead if you’d like, and store it covered in your refrigerator. That way it’s ready for you when you go to mix up your cake ingredients. 
This cake is topped off with a super luxurious chocolate ganache. Ganache is one of my favorite things to drizzle over cakes. It’s just chocolate and cream melted together, but it makes for a pretty garnish. This ganache has stout beer in it too, of course.
If you’re in charge of dessert for a St. Patrick’s Day party next week, I think you know what you should make. I can guarantee that this cake will steal the show!
Chocolate Stout Cake
Cake ingredients:
- 2 cups stout beer (of your choice)
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup buttermilk
Cake directions:
- Add stout beer to a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Let beer simmer until it’s reduced to 1 cup. (The best way to measure this is just to pour it into a measuring cup every once in awhile to check.) Let beer cool completely before using.
- Spray a bundt cake pan with cooking spray and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder.
- In another bowl, combine sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk. Mix on medium speed with an electric hand mixer until smooth.
- Add half of the stout reduction and half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix until combined. Repeat with second half of beer and dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until center is set and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cake plate and let cool completely.
Ganache ingredients:
- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tbsp stout beer
Ganache directions:
- Place chocolate chips in a heat-safe bowl.
- Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium heat; bring to a slight simmer, stirring occasionally. Do not boil.
- Pour cream over chocolate chips and let sit for a couple minutes. Whisk ganache until smooth. Add beer and whisk until incorporated.
- Spoon ganache over cooled cake.