Nigella's Guinness and Chocolate Cake

"Celebrity Chef" is a strange concept I discovered in the UK (Since I left France, this has also massively taken off in France). Over here, chefs are (almost) as much super stars as singers or actors. 
The press follows their private lives as much (if not more) as their cooking. 
Jamie Oliver shares photos of his kids and his private life everyday on Instagram, and we feel almost close to him for that. It's part of being a Celebrity Chef.
And it's not for her cooking skills that poor Nigella Lawson recently got even more famous.
Let me tell you; British people have a thing for their chefs, and I think I might be becoming like them.

One of my big dreams of the moment is to (finally) get a table at Le Gavroche and meet Michel Roux Jr. (I did get a chance to meet him briefly at a foodie festival last summer but I was so shy and impressed that I didn't even speak to him, when I'd normally have a million questions for the man!)

In the meantime, we should gossip less, and bake more!

Nigella's Guinness and Chocolate Cake

No, this cake doesn't taste of Guinness. It tastes of marvelous and deep dark chocolate, and it's moist and light.

And it's beautiful and delicious. 

And I find it so cool to bake a cake with Guinness in it.

Ingredients: 

for the cake

250 ml Guinness

250 grams unsalted butter

75 grams cocoa powder

400 grams caster sugar

142 ml sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

275 grams plain flour

2 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

for the topping

300 grams cream cheese

150 grams icing sugar

125 ml double cream (or whipping cream)

Method to make the Guinness and chocolate cake: 

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C/350ºF, and butter and line a 23cm / 9 inch springform tin.
2. Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the 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 then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
3. 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.
4. When the cake's cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsifted icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
5. 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.

 Recipe by Nigella Lawson