Guinness Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Our Guinness chocolate cake tastes rich, bakes to be tender and moist, and is topped with my favorite creamy, swirly cream cheese frosting. It’s super simple and guaranteed to be loved by everyone.

Every time I return to this Guinness chocolate cake, I kick myself for not making it sooner. The cake batter is ridiculously easy to make, thanks to melted butter. Since the butter is melted, there’s no need for a mixer, just a whisk, spoon, and bowls.

The creamy frosting is the same as we use for our popular carrot cake recipe. It’s intentionally whipped and creamy, so you’ll swirl it on the cake. It’s gorgeous and as heavy as some cream cheese frostings can be. As for the Guinness, you’ll need about half a bottle or can, so feel free to take a look at some of our other recipes with Guinness, like this incredible Guinness beef stew, sausage Guinness pie, or these mini beef Guinness pies.

Key Ingredients

• Guinness: You will need half a bottle or a can of Guinness for this cake. We add it to melted butter and cocoa powder, which bumps up the richness of the chocolate flavor in this cake. If you’d like to substitute the Guinness, use another stour beer, coffee, or, if you are in a pinch, water.
• Butter: I love the flavor of butter in this cake. I use unsalted butter, but no worries if you have salted butter. Reduce the salt called for in the recipe by a rounded 1/4 teaspoon.
• Unsweetened Cocoa: I recommend using natural unsweetened cocoa powder for this recipe. Some of my favorite brands are Ghirardelli, Hershey’s, or Guittard if you’re feeling fancy! Take note of our tips in the recipe for measuring cocoa. Since it is so finely ground, it is easy to pack too much cocoa into a measuring cup, leaving you with too much cocoa in the cake batter.
• Flour:  I use all-purpose flour for this cake, but this recipe should work with spelt flour or your favorite gluten-free flour blend for a gluten-free cake.
• Sugar: I use plain granulated sugar in this cake batter and let the flavor of the beer and cocoa shine through. You can experiment with brown sugar, which will add a bit more malty flavor and moisture to the cake.
• Eggs and Sour Cream: The eggs help add structure and flavor, while the sour cream keeps the cake super tender and moist. Plain yogurt is a good substitute for sour cream. I do not recommend substituting the eggs.
• Baking Soda: This helps our cake rise evenly in the cake pan.
• Vanilla and Salt: I don’t want to take too much away from the flavor of the beer and cocoa, but a little vanilla and some salt really help make this cake extra delicious.
• Frosting: This cream cheese frosting reminds me of softly whipped cream. It’s light, creamy, and swoopy. I highly recommend it, but if you want a firmer, more American-style cream cheese frosting that you can pipe onto the cake, see the tips section of our carrot cake recipe. For double to chocolate, you can replace the frosting below with this easy chocolate buttercream.

How to Make Guinness Chocolate Cake

I love easy cake recipes, and this Guinness cake hits the mark! The batter starts with melted butter mixed with Guinness and cocoa powder. The butter and beer are warm, so the cocoa powder has a chance to bloom. One of my favorite tricks for bringing out cocoa’s rice chocolate flavor is to bloom it in warm liquid or fat. We do this when making our one-bowl brownies and these easy chocolate cupcakes.

Next, you’ll fold your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt) into the butter mixture and finish the cake batter by folding in eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract. I told you it was easy!

Once your cake has baked and cooled completely, you can frost it. You will beat cream cheese with powdered sugar and cornstarch until fluffy and then beat in heavy cream. It turns light, swoopy, and creamy. We also use this frosting for our carrot cake.