New Food: Chocolate Porter Cake – My Word with Douglas E. Welch

If you subscribe to my Pinterest page, my @douglaswelch Twitter account or my Google+ feed, you know that I am always finding recipes I want to try. This series, New Food, will highlight some of those finds as we make them for the first time in our own kitchen. Then, I’ll report back to you on the results — for better or worse! — Douglas

Chocolate Porter Cake

I went looking for a recipe like this so I could bake up something special for the #KitchenParty LIVE show on December 13, 2012. The theme was Beer and Food, and I had been wanting to make a porter cake for a while, so I used the happy coincidence to my advantage. You can join us for #KitchenParty each Thursday evening at 8pm EST, where we invite in all our foodie friends to chat about their cookbooks, new projects and food in general. Join us at http://bakespace.com/news/ or watch the recorded version of the show on YouTube at http://youtube.com/bakespacetv.

I made my version of this cake with Stone Smoked Porter from the Stone Brewery near Escondido, California. My ffriends brought backa growler’s worth from their recent visit to the brewery. The combination of the cocoa and the porter quickly had the house filled with an amazing aroma. My wife commented on the smell 3 times while it was baking. This cake is destined for her office party tomorrow, but I will be making another for a friend’s party next week. The original recipe called foe a porter-chocolate glaze, but I don’t really think the cake needs it for everyday consumption. I might make it for the party, though, to dress it up a bit.

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Music: “Slow Burn” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) provided under Creative Commons License

Chocolate Porter Cake

(Recipe on Bakespace.com)

Ingredients

For the cake:
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups porter or stout
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil (or 1/2 cup applesauce, preferred)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
For the icing:
- 2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup porter or stout
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1-3 tbsp milk

Instructions

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 12-cup bundt pan.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, salt and sugars. Whisk to ensure even mixing.

Make a well in the center and pour in the beer, oil and vanilla. Whisk from the center, moving outwards until there are no lumps. Pour into prepared bundt pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a tester inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, the invert onto a wire rack.

For the icing:

Prepare the frosting while the cake is cooling.

In a food processor add all of the ingredients except the milk and mix until smooth. Add milk 1 tbsp at a time if you want a thinner frosting.

Spread frosting on the cake once it completely cooled.