Father’s Day baking

Father’s Day is a day when we love to spoil those special men in our families. Fathers, grandfathers, uncles or friends – anyone who plays a father-like role  in our life or in that of our children.

You will obviously know their taste in special meals – my Dad loved roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by apple pie and cream. I have only met one or two men though, who don’t love a slice of chocolate cake as a treat, so I’m sharing with you a rather scrummy recipe.

It’s Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guiness cake, which I have in her book Feast and the accompanying photo is from that too.

Cake
250 ml Guiness
250 g unsalted butter (& extra for greasing the tin)
75 g cocoa
400 g caster sugar
142 ml sour cream (1 pot)
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 & half tsp bicarb of soda

Topping
300g cream cheese
150g icing sugar
125ml double cream

Preheat the oven to 180 deg, and butter and line a 23-cm springform tin.

Pour the Guiness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter in slices, and heat until the butter is melted.

Then whisk into the pan the cocoa and caster sugar.

Separately beat the sour cream, eggs and vanilla and pour that into the pan. Finally, whisk into the mix the flour and bicarb.

Pour the batter into the baking tin and bake for 45 min to an hour.  Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack. Only turn out when cold.

Whip the cream cheese until smooth and beat in the icing sugar.

Add the cream and beat again until it’s a spreadable consistency.

Ice the top of the cake only so that it resembles the frothy top of a pint of Guiness.

Enjoy!