Chocolate porter cake
- Published: 9 Mar 16
- Updated: 18 Mar 24
The porter in this chocolate cake recipe ensures it’s extra moist. Serve this celebratory dessert at a dinner party or birthday.
Or… our chocolate Guinness cake is very similar, and perfect for St Paddy’s celebrations.
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Serves 12-16
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Hands-on time 30 min, oven time 1 hour, plus cooling
Ingredients
- Sunflower oil for greasing
- 260ml porter (we like St Peter’s Old-Style Porter or Guinness)
- 250g unsalted butter
- 100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped into chunks
- 50g cocoa powder
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g soft light brown sugar
- 2 large free-range eggs
- 150g full-fat Greek yogurt
- 2 tsp vanilla bean extract
- 280g plain flour
- 2½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
For the topping
- 200g full-fat cream cheese (note: it needs to be full fat, and Philadelphia is the brand we’d recommend for best results)
- 80g icing sugar
- 200ml double cream
You’ll also need…
- Deep 23cm loose-bottomed cake tin
Method
- Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/ gas 4. Grease a deep 23cm loose- bottomed cake tin and line with baking paper. In a large pan, gently warm the porter, butter and chocolate until the butter and chocolate have melted.
- Mix the cocoa powder and sugars in a large bowl, rubbing away lumps. Pour in the chocolate mixture gradually, whisking well using a balloon whisk, then add the eggs. Whisk until it’s thick and smooth, then whisk in the yogurt, vanilla, flour and bicarbonate of soda.
- Pour the batter into the lined tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
- Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat the topping ingredients with an electric mixer until the mix just holds its shape. It’s important not to carry on beating as the topping will go runny – and the more you beat, the runnier it will get. Beware, too, that adding more icing sugar isn’t a quick fix – it will only make the topping runnier. Swirl the icing on top of the cooled cake.
- Recipe from March 2016 Issue
Nutrition
- Calories
- 464kcals
- Fat
- 26.6g (16.5g saturated)
- Protein
- 5.8g
- Carbohydrates
- 48.4g (34.6g sugars)
- Fibre
- 1.4g
- Salt
- 0.5g
delicious. tips
The un-iced cake will keep for up to 2 days in a container in a cool place. It will keep frozen, wrapped in cling film, for up to 1 month.
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This is one of my favourite cakes to make – perfect for a birthday. It’s moist yet light, chocolatey and so easy to make. I like the fact that the topping is lighter and fresher than the usual cream cheese icing, too, but I always add a crumbled flake to decorate . Almost foolproof, i’d say!