Chocolate and Guinness Cakelets

So, as you all know, last Monday, 17th March, was St Patrick's Day. How did everyone celebrate this event this year? For me, I usually end up making the chocolate and Guinness cake from Nigella Lawson's Feast; but this time round, I decided I'd make them into mini cakes - or as I like to call them, cakelets - instead, so that it's more portable and practical for giving to others.  

Guinness! $5/can at BWS

I used the same recipe quantity and divided the batter into 2 x 6-hole texas muffin pans. I had thought about baking them in regular muffin pans, but decided that the resulting product would not be able to showcase the moist, melt-in-your-mouth, crumb very well, due to the higher crust-to-interior ratio. On the other hand, the giant muffin size seemed to be the perfect one-person portion; so that was that. I checked for doneness with a cake tester at 20 minutes, then at 25, by which time it was cooked to perfection. If you had read my previous post about this recipe in one of the previous years, you would know that my last attempt resulted in the sides of the cake being a bit on the dry side from overcooking, due to my oven's uneven heating, causing the middle of the cake to take longer to cook through. This problem was not apparent at all with these miniature cakes; even the tops did not become firm at all on cooling. 

The topping I chose to make for these cakelets was a blonde mocha sauce. I poured the almost-cooled sauce directly over the cakelets while they were still in the pan, drizzled over some melted chocolate, and studded the top of each with some walnuts, which, I'm sure all will agree, is a match made in heaven for anything coffee-flavoured. If you're serving it straight away, carefully removing the paper wrapper will allow the fabulous, gooey sauce to flow down the sides of the cake, drowning it in its deliciousness. I find that pre-dressing the cakes in this way provides just the right amount of sauce for the given cake proportion.

I should mention that these cakelets also smelt amazing, even after fully cooling. I put 2 of these cakelets in an airtight container to give to a friend, on the same day they were made, and when she cracked the lid open just very slightly, someone in our company, who was having a conversation with someone else at the time, turned her head towards the chocolatey smell straight away. I am a firm believer that you really have to use the best cocoa powder you can find when making chocolate baked goods, in order to make it taste and smell truly chocolatey. My favourite at the moment remains Henry Langdon's 100% dutch-processed Pure Cocoa. It makes me happy that this is also an Australian company that I am supporting.

Obviously, the cakes will need to be kept under refrigeration, if you don't finish them all on the first day. What this will do is firm up the sauce, such that it becomes ganache-like, and look something like this:

Some others who have made this cake before have mentioned that they love eating the cake straight from the fridge the next day, and actually find it to taste better than when freshly baked. That's great; you'll get a fully-frosted chocolate cakelet, ready to have on-the-go. If your fridge is as cold as mine, however, you will not find this to be the case at all. Thankfully, a quick 10-second whizz in the microwave is sufficient to bring the cake back to life, and regain the gooey texture of the sauce, albeit still thicker than originally, unless you don't mind heating it a bit longer and having a warm cake. I personally don't enjoy warmed-through cakes though. 

Serving it up for afternoon tea the next day, after a quick whirl in the microwave

Well, I hope that gives you some baking inspiration for today! I'd love to try using Guinness in other types of baked goods, so please do share if you have any recipe ideas. :)


Happy baking! x