With the Help of the Wee Folk

The Leprechauns must have been watching over me on Saturday.  I went looking for four leaf clovers to put on the cake, and ended up finding 13 of them, along with a five leaf clover!  The cake was moist and delicious.  There was no regular Guinness stout in the grocery store, so I ended up using a local beer, Natty Greene's Old Town Brown Ale, instead.  Here's the recipe I used, from Simply Recipes:

Chocolate Guinness Cake

1 cup stout or porter beer, such as Guinness
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cream cheese frosting recipe

As often happens, I tweaked a few things... used organic sugar for the superfine, the brown ale mentioned above for the Guinness, Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, and left out the salt as the butter was salted.

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.  Grease a 8 or 9 inch springform pan with butter and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.  (I waited until step 2 was done to preheat)

2. In a large saucepan, place the beer and butter.  Cook over medium-high heat until the butter has melted.  Add the cocoa powder and sugars and whisk together.  Take off heat and allow to come to room temperature.

3. In another bowl, beat together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract until very well combined.  Add to the beer-butter mixture and whisk together.

4.  In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the beer-butter mixture and whisk together until it just comes together.  Pour into the prepared pan and give the pan a few short drops onto the counter to release the air pockets in the batter to the surface.  Bake for 50-60 minutes.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.  Run a knife around the edge to separate the cake from the pan and pop the ring off the springform.

5. Spread the frosting on the cooled cake and serve.

Yield:  Makes one 8 or 9-inch cake.

I also fixed Colcannon for the first time.  This recipe, which was a hit.  I mean, really, how can you go wrong with homegrown potatoes, heavy cream and butter :o)  I hope your St. Patrick's Day was just as nice!