Best Guinness Chocolate Cake Bake Off

Searching for the best Guinness chocolate cake recipe for St. Patrick’s Day? I baked 9 different recipes in one day and asked tasters to rate them in search of the most moist Guinness chocolate cake with a perfect buttercream!

While Guinness chocolate cake is classically made for St. Patrick’s Day, I think this moist chocolate cake is so delicious that you don’t need an excuse to make it. The first time I ever tried a chocolate stout cake was while making a recipe video for Imperial Sugar and it was SO moist and delicious. I’ve been thinking about that cake ever since!

They’ve since taken the recipe down from their blog, so this is my attempt to find an equally good one. Let’s dive into all 9 recipes we tried!

Methodology

• I baked 9 full-size cakes in one day
• 46 total tasters tasted samples of all 9 cakes
• Each taster rated each cake on a scale from 0-10 for flavor, texture and overall as a whole (see Results section below)
• All recipes were baked the same day of tasting for freshness
• Ingredients were measured by weight according to King Arthur (unless the recipe specified weights)

Ingredients

• Gold Medal bleached all-purpose flour
• Hershey’s cocoa powder
• Guittard Dutch-process cocoa powder
• Guittard semisweet chocolate
• Kirkland unsalted butter
• Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt

“This cake is magnificent in its damp blackness…like gingerbread without the spices.”

Nigella Lawson

How is Guinness chocolate cake different from regular chocolate cake?

You might be wondering: why not just make a regular chocolate cake? Does a Guinness chocolate cake actually taste like Guiness?

To me, most cakes themselves did not actually taste like Guinness. Where the alcohol flavor comes in is generally the frosting, which you can easily customize to your own preference (i.e use cream or milk instead of Irish whiskey). I did have a supertaster in my group of tasters who found the alchol notes quite strong, but this was an outlying data point.

As someone with average tastebuds, I’d say there were a few that had a darker, more bitter profile that hinted at more of an alcoholic flavor, but it was still quite subtle. So don’t worry–if you don’t like the taste of beer (and you’re not a supertaster), you’ll still enjoy these cakes!

Now, here are a few elements that set Guinness chocolate cake apart from regular chocolate cake:

• Deeper flavor: The Guinness or stout replaces the more typical buttermilk, milk or coffee that you might use in a standard chocolate cake. Some say the bitterness of the Guinness helps offset the sweetness of the cake, so it’s ideal for those who aren’t looking for a super sweet cake. It can also impart some malty notes that you wouldn’t find using just milk.
• A spiked cream cheese frosting: I was very charmed by Nigella’s instructions to frost just the top of the cake with cream cheese frosting to echo the frothy top that sits on a glass of stout. The majority of recipes I tried used a cream cheese frosting which departs from the more typical buttercream in a standard chocolate cake. Many of the recipes also called for a splash of Irish cream in the frosting which obviously lends the cake a more boozy flavor profile–a key distinguishing factor over a regular chocolate cake.
• Carbonation for tenderness: I couldn’t find a ton of research to substantiate this, but some say that carbonated beverages help leaven cakes by adding bubbles to the batter. The acid in Guinness can also help lower the pH of the cake batter and thus alter the egg/flour protein structures, leading to a more tender cake. (This was a great read on 7Up cake experiments.) Anecdotally, I do think all of these cakes were on average much more moist than an average chocolate cake.

I’ll leave you with this quote from one taster: “Normally, with chocolate-centric bake offs, I’ve found myself having to focus on texture commentary due to chocolate desensitization after a certain point. But I have to say, the idea of using Guinness to make for a moister cake seems to hold up because there’s not been a single dry sample in the box. It’s mostly been variance in density, and this one leans a bit denser.”

Results: The Crowd Favorite

In this bake off, there was one question that I didn’t anticipate. Would people would be rating the cakes based on overall deliciousness as a chocolate cake, or would they be judging based on how Guinness-forward it was?

Some tasters actually gave slightly lower scores if the cake tasted just like a chocolate cake rather than having a twinge of Guinness flavor. As I note above, I think the majority of people picking up on “Guinness flavor” were probably picking up on the Irish whiskey in the frosting rather than the cake itself. So if you’re looking for a cake with a prominent boozy flavor, make sure to check out the frosting commentary under the analysis section. That can really change the flavor profile of the whole cake!

I personally was rating based on how delicious I thought the cake overall was–a Guinness profile was secondary to me. In any case, the crowd favorite did align with one of my several favorites as it was very hard to pick just one (full recap of my favorites at the very end of this post):

While it might be easy to assume you should just make the top-rated winner, rest assured these were all delicious and I think it’s worth trying any of the cakes whose description speaks to you.

As always, please take these results with a grain of salt as these scores reflect my own personal baking abilities and very specific group of tasters! I truly think most people would be delighted to eat any of these cakes served as a standalone option.

Factors for the best Guinness chocolate cake recipe

The factors that went into the various Guinness chocolate cake recipes didn’t vary that much from chocolate cake recipes. I always like to look at the type of fat used, type of cocoa used, sour cream vs. buttermilk vs. milk, creaming methods, etc. I’ll discuss some of my findings from testing the various recipes below.

Oil and butter almost feel interchangeable

In many past cake bake offs, a combination of oil and butter has proved superior for a moist texture and buttery flavor. However, here we had an oil-based cake in first place, a butter-based cake in second place, and a combination butter/oil in third.

I hypothesized that the brown butter cake (Blue Bowl) might be slightly drier given the water that evaporates off the butter, but that wasn’t the case. Texturally, the cakes were pretty much all moist across the board, which I suspect could be due to the extra moisture and/or carbonation from the Guinness. Nigella and Hummingbird were both butter-based and the least moist, though I still wouldn’t consider them dry. Flavor-wise, I think the chocolate also overpowered any flavor edge that you might get from butter.

One thing I love about Guinness chocolate cakes is the ease of technique. Most were one-bowl recipes that could be quickly assembled by hand. Even recipes that used butter generally used melted butter–only The Rose Wife/Tasty required pulling out the stand mixer to cream the butter. My takeaway: if you don’t need to cream the butter (and the texture and flavor basically won’t be affected), why not skip the melting step and just default to oil as the fat?

Sour cream is superior for more plushness

There were two almost apple-to-apple comparisons in this bake off with the key differences being sour cream vs. buttermilk. Sally’s Baking Addiction (sour cream) vs. Zoe Bakes (buttermilk) and Nigella Lawson (sour cream) vs. Hummingbird Bakery (buttermilk). In both cases, the cakes that used sour cream came out on top.

I used to think that sour cream and buttermilk could be used fairly interchangeably. In certain cases, this may work if all you’re looking for is an acidic liquid-y ingredient. However, a cup of buttermilk typically contains .5-1.5% fat while a cup of sour cream is around 18% milkfat. It makes sense that the higher fat content of sour cream will lead to a richer, more tender and more pleasing cake texture (all else being fairly equal).

Should we reduce Guinness for better flavor?

I must reiterate that virtually no cakes had a strong Guinness or alcoholic flavor to me. I was most intrigued by Sally’s technique of reducing nearly 24 oz of Guinness down to 3/4 cup for concentrated flavor. She notes that this won’t make the cake taste like beer–it’ll simply intensify chocolate’s natural flavor.

And ultimately, I do think Sally’s cake had the best chocolate flavor out of all the cakes! It was roasty, full-bodied and felt like pure cocoa with none of the bitter edges of some other cakes. I do also think this was assisted by a generous amount of natural cocoa, and I do think the flavor edge was subtle compared to the other cakes. If you’re loathe to take the extra step of reducing Guinness, I think the cake would still be wonderful with regular Guinness.

Which is better: natural or Dutch-process cocoa?

Only 2 out of the 9 recipes called for Dutch-process cocoa (Tasty and Zoe Bakes). Zoe’s cake yielded a surprisingly reddish hue from the Guittard cocoa and had a more muted chocolate flavor. Meanwhile, Tasty used a higher ratio of cocoa for a deeper color that was accentuated by a generous amount of espresso powder.

While Tasty did land in second place, I think this was due in large part to its extraordinary texture. As discussed above, I think Sally had the best cocoa flavor overall, but I think the next best in terms of balanced chocolate flavor were The Rose Wife and Pioneer Woman. In this particular bake off, it seems that natural cocoa is both more traditional and desirable in terms of flavor.

Note: if the recipe didn’t specify which type of cocoa to use, I defaulted to natural cocoa. One clue you can use to figure out which cocoa to use is by looking at the leavener. If the main or sole leavener is baking soda (base), use natural cocoa (acid).

Analysis of all 9 Guiness chocolate cake recipes

Hummingbird Bakery: a coarse-crumbed, slightly drier cake with a subtle sweetness

This London-based bakery uses a slightly adapted version of Nigella’s Guinness chocolate cake. The main difference: Hummingbird uses buttermilk instead of sour cream for what they note is a slightly lighter texture. They also include 1/2 tsp of baking powder while Nigella only uses baking soda. This is a one-pot recipe: after melting the Guinness and butter together, you stir the other 8 ingredients straight into the saucepan.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed by this cake’s crumb in comparison to Nigella’s cake. While the cake did have a more open crumb, I found it slightly coarse and crumbly rather than delightfully fluffy. It felt slightly drier than Nigella’s cake with little flavor–it wasn’t very sweet or cocoa-forward. The cream cheese frosting was sweet and pleasant, but neither the cake nor frosting really stood out to me.

Taster comments:

• Crumb has a nice deep cocoa flavor. My favorite crumb out of all of them. Frosting was ok, didn’t enhance the cocoa in the crumb.
• Denser and dry cake with not a ton of flavor in the cake, very thin layer of icing that doesn’t add a lot to the cake, can taste the beer subtly in the cake
• I liked the cream cheese frosting (?) on this sample and surprisingly liked that it was a bit on the drier side (which made the cake feel lighter?). This had a more pronounced alcohol flavor, but it wasn’t overpowering the way that I felt it was in [Inquiring Chef].
• Noticeably alcoholic in vibe. A stiff kind of cake, almost like a quick bread, though not as dense. Frosting is quite sweet.
• Dense cake with a thicker crumb (not in a good way). Extremely sweet vanilla frosting in a super thin layer to the point where I question why it’s there! Nothing says Guinness to me.
• Cake is sticky and chewy with a large crumb. The cream cheese frosting flavor is really nice, but the texture is equally chewy and together the effect is slightly playdohy.
• The texture of the cake is too dense leaning towards being a loose brownie. The frosting is very standard with no standout flavor. Overall very underwhelming Guiness taste

Nigella Lawson: a fluffy, almost spongy, mild-flavored chocolate cake

If there’s one iconic Guinness chocolate cake recipe, it is definitely Nigella’s, which came recommended from dozens of people. Like Hummingbird Bakery, it’s easy to make in just one saucepan. This uses sour cream instead of Hummingbird’s buttermilk with just baking soda (no baking powder). The cream cheese icing uses the unusual addition of cornstarch, but Nigella notes the cream as the unconventional addition for a frothier and lighter frosting.

This cake felt just a hair softer than Hummingbird Bakery. Similar to Hummingbird, this cake is not very sweet with a bit of a bitter edge but otherwise a bit flavorless. (This could be due to the fact that both Hummingbird and Nigella don’t call for any salt.) The cake texture is a bit thick and spongy and honestly not as moist as many of the other cakes. While the cream cheese frosting is thick and silky, it wasn’t my favorite rendition of a cream cheese frosting–generally I like adding a bit of salt or vanilla for flavor.

I was pretty surprised how disappointed I was in Nigella’s cake, so I decided to remake it again after the bake off to check for baker’s error. In comparing other versions of the recipe to the one posted on Nigella’s site (which I used), I realized her (very popular) version on NYT uses half the amount of butter with slightly different flour measurements! I tried remaking both versions side by side and here were the results:

While I think I could’ve done a slightly better job whisking out the lumps in my first cake, I got a very similar result to the original cake, so I don’t think baker’s error was to blame. I still didn’t love it! The flavor still felt not very sweet or cocoa-forward–overall, unremarkable.

And while I think her description of “damp blackness” applies very well to cakes like Inquiring Chef or Blue Bowl, it didn’t feel as appropriate for this fluffy but more spongy rather than squishy texture. Surprisingly, I slightly preferred the texture of the NYT cake with less butter. However, they were quite similar given the fat difference. Overall, I’d say it’s a solid chocolate cake but I’m not sure what the hype is all about.

Taster comments:

• The cake here tastes really good. This looks like it got the highest rise compared to all of the cakes. The frosting here pairs well and is not overpowering the cake. Looks and feels airy. I think my second favorite of all of them. My favorite of all the vanilla frostings on cake.
• My favorite of the white frosted. So many of these cakes had great texture – this cake seemed a bit dry and stiff, but the frosting made up for it
• My favorite icing so far! It’s lovely and loose and tangy without being overly sweet. The cake was dry though I could taste the Guinness slightly. Would have liked a deeper chocolate flavor to it.
• I like the cream cheese frosting on its own, the slight tanginess was nice paired with the cake. Perfectly airy and buttery. Cake was drier than my liking. Not much cocoa or guinness came through for me
• Dense cake with a subtle flavor, doesn’t do much for me. A very not-very-sweet cream cheese frosting, it’s almost like whipped cream cheese and that’s all.
• Not much flavor in this cake and frosting. The cake is a bit dense but moist. Not an exciting cake. I didn’t like the texture of this sample–it felt drier than the others but not in a light way. This sample felt less sweet than the others but also felt like it didn’t really taste like anything?

Blue Bowl Recipes: a moist, squishy cake with slight burnt/soapy notes with a heavenly brown butter cream cheese frosting

When I first started scraping recipes for this bake off, I was slightly concerned that they might all be too similar to do a full bake off. Stephanie’s recipe stood out as a clear differentiated recipe that I had to try! Both the cake and frosting call for brown butter (the only recipe that did so). The cake also calls for a mix of brown and white sugar, sour cream, espresso powder and a full cup of cocoa powder. Aside from browning the butter, this cake is a breeze to throw together.

The deep, dark hue of this cake looked PERFECT as did the soft, finely crumbed, moist texture. However, I was a bit skeptical of the 3.75 tsp of baking soda in this recipe. I suspect the heavy amount of leavener lent the cake slightly bitter, soapy notes. While the bitterness almost served to reinforce a more alcoholic flavor, I think they were a bit excessive. Still, this was one of my favorite textures–so loose-crumbed and moist, it’s almost fudgy–and it would be easy to reduce the baking soda to a more typical 2 tsp.

For the brown butter cream cheese frosting, I was concerned that chilling the brown butter for just 10-15 minutes wouldn’t be enough to cool it. But sure enough, the mixture was lumpy at first but ultimately smoothed out. The brown butter gives the frosting toasted, caramel-y notes that I loved! This was the frosting I kept going back to, and I think it would be the perfect topping to virtually any cake (though some tasters found it too sweet and butterscotch-y). I would be thrilled to make this cake again with a reduced amount of baking soda.

Taster comments:

• THE BEST!!! stood out even after eating a million bites of cake, complex flavor (caramel notes like [Sally’s Baking Addiction]), excellent texture, immaculate vibes
• Perfect frosting!!!!! Flavor and texture both knocked it out of the park, was firm enough to hold its shape but not dense, a great balance of cream cheese and sweetness. The cake was similarly plush to [Tasty], but the stout flavor came through more. Both elements worked well together, but the frosting is the winning component.
• Strong flavor in the cake, SUPER moist and turns almost fudgey when you chew. Liked the nuttiness in the frosting.
• The cake is a little dry and almost bitter? All together with the icing, the flavor reminds me vaguely of a one-note caramel sticky toffee pudding. If you love artificial caramel candy, you will like this one.
• Frosting had too strong a butterscotch flavor. Texture of frosting was good, albeit dense. Cake was good – was chocolatey and I tasted a slight hint of Guinness at the end, which I liked.
• I really taste the guinness in the cake itself, and I actually did not like that – it gives it a very weird bitter taste (maybe something crucial evaporates as it bakes?) and an unpleasant aftertaste.

Zoe Bakes: a fluffy, thick, almost bouncy and moist cake with a lighter chocolate flavor

Zoe’s recipe was the foil to Sally’s recipe in the same way Hummingbird was almost an exact test of Nigella’s cake, but with buttermilk instead of sour cream. Zoe’s recipe has a few key differences to Sally’s recipe: buttermilk instead of sour cream, Dutch-process cocoa instead of natural cocoa, and regular, non-reduced Guinness. I paired this cake with her white knight frosting (a cocoa and melted chocolate buttercream with European-style butter and Irish whisky) and omitted the whipped cream topping for consistency with the other cakes.

This had a lovely moist crumb with a significantly thicker mouthfeel. Rather than the squishy crumb of Inquiring Chef, for example, this one had an almost springier, more substantial chew that still remained moist and soft. The flavor was less cocoa-forward and not super Guinness-forward either–it’s kind of subtly sweet.

Though a couple tasters described the chocolate buttercream as “gritty,” this is the exact kind of sugary buttercream that I like. The hint of whiskey in the frosting was really one of the only hints that this was a Guinness chocolate cake rather than a straight up chocolate cake (no complaints here!).

Taster comments:

• I really liked the fudgy texture and flavor of this cake, and the icing was my favorite of all the icings too. This tasted like a really good chocolate cake (not a lot of Guinness/alcohol flavor). My favorite of all of the samples!
• Interesting the first pass on this one I wasn’t too sold, but as I went through a second round I really warmed up to it. It is a perfect balance of chocolate and Guiness. Also the cake texture seemed moister and almost more bready and spongy, perhaps the frosting is now soaking through a bit.
• I liked the moist cake but it didn’t have much flavor. The frosting consistency was good but Guinness flavor isn’t very prominent neither is the chocolate. Overall, not much taste to this one.
• Great cake with really good texture but the whole thing is let down by the grainy buttercream frosting. No Guinness at all!
• On the border between moist and wet cake texture, lighter flavor, similar to Texas sheet cake in chocolate cake and very sweet chocolate frosting combo (not a cream cheese frosting). Icing hardened on this one whereas the rest stayed fluffy.
• Frosting on [Sally’s] was preferable – too sweet on this one. Good flavor on the cake, which is plush without being wet. The texture of the cake is really nice, but the crystalized icing is a bit too much of a contrast and the pure sugariness of the icing overpowers the cake.

Inquiring Chef: a squishy-soft, extremely tender cake with a deeply dark, almost bitter chocolate flavor

I was more invested than usual in the outcome of this eggless cake given the current climate of rapidly mounting egg prices. This was one of the only egg-free Guinness cakes I found, and I was intrigued by its simplicity. With just 8 ingredients (including salt, baking soda and vanilla), this is a simple one-bowl cake that you can mix by hand. It calls for just 1/4 cup of oil for an 8-9″ cake round, and I was curious if amount of fat would be sufficient for a tender crumb that could compete with the others.

And happily, it was! Upon my first round of tasting, this cake stood out as one of my favorites with its damp, soft and yielding texture that just melts in your mouth. This cake did stand out as having a less structured crumb–the lack of egg means the crumb structure is a bit weaker and crumbles more easily (which I didn’t mind). The flavor profile definitely leans darker with a more bitter cocoa flavor. If there’s one cake that actually tasted like Guinness, this would be it. And the texture stays moist and soft for days!

Personally, I didn’t love the Baileys-forward cream cheese/whipped cream frosting. With just 1/3 cup powdered sugar to sweeten the frosting, it felt almost thick, cream-forward, and a bit greasy. I’d love this cake paired with Sally’s chocolate cream cheese frosting or Blue Bowl’s brown butter cream cheese frosting.

If you’re looking for an easy, super soft and moist cake (and don’t mind a bit of crumbling and intense flavor), this is the one!

Taster comments:

• Perfectly rich, moist and chocolatey–favorite of all of the samples.
• Strong beer flavor, the most Guinness-y of all the cakes. More subtle cream cheese frosting, moist cake with nice crumb. A really good choice if you want to really taste the beer. Love the texture of the frosting.
• The Guinness and dark chocolate is strong (maybe a tad bit strong for my liking) but the flavor is still so delicious and the texture is IMPECCABLE!!!! So moist and soft
• I liked the icing texture and taste. Milky and consistency. The cake had a strong Guinness + alcohol flavor at the backend which I thought was too overpowering
• Very fluffy, loose crumb that falls apart when you pick it up. Most crumbly of all the cakes. The most prominent Guinness flavor, really syrupy and it overpowers the icing. Icing is soft and airy but totally hidden when eaten with the cake (on its own it was nice and whipped).
• Liked my first bite but on second round, after tasting all the others, did NOT like anymore. Way too alcoholic tasting
• The cake was too moist that it became kind of goopy in the mouth (claggy, per GBBO).

Pioneer Woman: a soft, almost fudgy yet fluffy cake with a decent cocoa flavor and boozy icing

Pioneer Woman’s was the only recipe that uses a mix of cocoa and melted chocolate in the batter. It’s made with a similar method to Nigella by melting the butter and Guinness together in a saucepan (along with the sugars) before whisking in the other ingredients. This recipe also uses an additional egg yolk along with sour cream.

This cake had a fudgy, close, thick and soft crumb that was more similar to Zoe Bakes than the looser, crumblier texture of Inquiring Chef. To me, this struck a great balance between being moist but not overly squishy, structured yet still soft, and sweet but still sufficiently cocoa-forward. The balanced richness made this an easy one to keep revisiting!

The icing is more of a glaze with just a bit of cream cheese and butter to add body to the powdered sugar with Irish cream to loosen it. I personally found the buttercream way too sweet and alcohol-forward. Many tasters commented on this having the strongest Guinness flavor overall, and I think most of these notes were due to the Baileys in the frosting.

Overall, this was a delicious cake that I would happily make again in the future, likely paired with a different frosting.

Taster comments:

• Best balance of Guinness flavor overall. The frosting was a good consistency and the cake was appropriately chocolatey and moist.
• Perfectly gooey fudgy cake texture- would like the chocolate flavor to be a little more rich to balance with the texture but still has a good taste. Chocolate icing would be better than vanilla–this is my second favorite
• Frosting had the perfect amount of Guinness flavor without overpowering. Really nice malty caramel notes. Crumb was very moist with perfect level of sweetness and cocoa.
• Getting a lot of notes of Guiness on this one in the best way. Tastes like a perfectly poured stout. I really enjoy how the chocolate and frosting flavors work well with the Guiness. Boozy without an overwhelming aftertaste.
• This cake is plush and pleasantly mild in flavor, one of the top for me. The icing, on the other hand, has a distinct alcoholic flavor that I’m not a fan of. Would have been rated higher if not for the icing flavor.
• Fudgy cake in a good way, rich but not too dense. The cake itself has the most flavor of the bunch! Sugary boozy frosting! It tastes like Baileys, perhaps a bit too sweet.
• Love the Guinness taste coming through from the frosting, the cake is a little too dense and the texture of the frosting is also too granulated

Tasty: a squishy, airy, fudgy, extraordinarily moist cake

I’ve actually tested this cake once before in the chocolate cake bake off. Tasty didn’t perform very well previously in large part because of the alcohol notes that some tasters detected–so I figured this would be a more fair bake off to judge it! Unlike most of the recipes in this bake off, Tasty advertises this more as an all-purpose “ultimate chocolate cake” recipe rather than a Guinness chocolate cake. Still, I thought it would be an interesting comparison.

This was one of two cakes that calls for creaming the butter and sugar along with the famously controversial ingredient, mayo. Note: I omitted the chopped dark chocolate that gets folded into the batter for consistency with the other cakes.

I’m so glad I included this cake because it had the most unique texture of the bunch. Simultaneously airy, fluffy and structured yet absolutely so moist that it almost squishes in your mouth (in a good way, I promise!). It somehow manages to be spongy but not at all chewy. The flavor is deeply chocolate-y but with slight bitter notes that I think came from the espresso. The chocolate flavor isn’t as pure chocolate-y as The Rose Wife and Sally’s Baking Addiction, but the texture makes up for it.

Paired with a sugary chocolate buttercream, this to me really lives up to its title of the “ultimate chocolate cake.” It also stayed moist for days. While this is definitely more work to make than some of the others, it’s a great showstopper to keep in your back pocket.

Taster comments:

• Could be a little more Guinness forward but overall perfect cake and frosting texture and flavor. The best chocolate cake.
• Great texture! Perfectly moist. Nice chocolatey flavor with a hint of bitterness and fluffy frosting. Might be my fav!
• Such a lovely, cocoa-y cake that had nice depth and richness and felt like a chocolate birthday cake. Slightly powdery aftertaste. The icing was firm and fit well, but in a vote of personal preference I would absolutely prefer a cream cheese frosting on this.
• Tastes like a delicious chocolate cake with perfect texture and moisture. Chocolate flavor intensifies in the mouth. Kind of an ideal chocolate cake, but doesn’t taste like Guinness. Best looking cake.
• There’s a slightly salty, bitter edge to this sample that I don’t dislike but also don’t think it’s doing anything extra special to accentuate the flavors, whether the chocolate or the Guinness. That said, as a chocolate cake in general, I really enjoyed this; I just think, compared to the other more Guinness-forward samples, I’m not getting a stand-out effect here.
• The texture of both is off, the cake is too dense and wet (not moist) and the frosting is too thick and chalky. Overall very sweet and no Guiness taste with the base being even a little salty at places.

The Rose Wife: a perfectly fluffy, moist and soft cake with a balanced cocoa flavor

I agonized over picking just one oil + butter cake to test in this bake off–it was down to this recipe or Eat the Love, which has a higher ratio of oil to butter. In the end, I chose The Rose Wife’s recipe mainly because it was one of the only recipes that called for creaming the butter, and I was curious to see if this would have a significantly different texture. It also calls for a few unusual ingredients: a combination of cake flour and all-purpose for a satisfying bite and half and half instead of the usual buttermilk or sour cream.

If you asked me to pick one cake out of the line up that used creamed rather than melted butter or oil, I doubt I could’ve picked this one (or Tasty’s for that matter). This had a perfectly soft and fluffy texture, but it didn’t stand out to me as that different from recipes that didn’t require creaming.

But back to the texture–it’s delightful! This felt very similar to Sally’s Baking Addiction and I kept taking bites of each to compare. I think this cake had a slightly softer, more plush crumb than Sally’s (not as squishy as Inquiring Chef) but a slightly less cocoa-forward flavor. However, the flavor feels sweeter and more balanced (compared to Inquiring Chef’s bitter cocoa profile) and this had my second favorite cocoa flavor in the cake itself.

The cream cheese frosting is essentially the same as Sally’s but with slightly more sugar and Baileys instead of Guinness. A solid combination! I’d happily make this again–the only thing that might put me off is having to pull out my stand mixer.

Taster comments:

• As a whole, this one was very good and my favorite cake! The texture and taste of the frosting worked well with the texture of the cake. Only wish was that the cake had a deeper chocolate flavor. I’d eat a full slice of this cake.
• This one is almost perfect!!!!! not the most flavorful but still good, good texture all around, and so much frosting!! (love)
• Reminds me more of a red velvet cake, icing is nice and tastes more complex than typical cream cheese icing. I kept coming back to this one as the more balanced cake in the container, even though it didn’t remind me of Guinness chocolate cake
• Mild and pleasant fluffiness to the cake w/ a fine crumb! Almost a fruitiness to the chocolate taste. One of my favorite frostings – I like the appearance of the stark white frosting and the thicker coating. Flavor wise it’s smooth, subtle boozy flavor punctuated by the zing of a little cream cheese flavor.
• This sample had a slightly more pronounced alcohol flavor/bitterness than sample 4, but it wasn’t overpowering + was appreciated given it is a Guiness Chocolate Cake. I also really liked the icing (cream cheese?) on this one
• Super forward cream cheese flavor on the icing, very zesty! Suitable moist base, very neutral chocolate cake but not notable.

Sally’s Baking Addiction: a perfectly fluffy and moist cake with a balanced cocoa flavor

As far as technique goes, I was most intrigued by Sally’s recipe with 2 full bottles of Guinness reduced down to 3/4 cup. The rest of the recipe feels fairly standard–it’s somewhat similar to Nigella’s cake but with oil, less flour and added buttermilk. Aside from reducing the Guinness, this cake takes almost no time to throw together in a bowl that you can whisk by hand, which I loved!

At first taste, this cake felt similar to Inquiring Chef with its soft, moist crumb. But it’s actually slightly coarser and fluffier with a more open crumb that remains perfectly soft. With more eggs for structure, this holds its shape better than the more squishy IC. After tasting this cake back to back with other cakes multiple times, I feel confident that this one has the best pure cocoa flavor if you’re looking for a strictly chocolate cake. Does it taste like Guinness? Not really to me! But I loved the rich and tangy chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Overall, a winning combination! As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I do suspect that you can make this cake without reducing the Guinness and it would still be very good.

Taster comments:

• My favorite overall because of the flavor. Cake texture was a good level of dense and moist but not the best. Chocolate cream cheese frosting texture was great.
• The chocolate frosting here tastes more…sophisticated for some reason. Maybe feels indulgent with chocolate on chocolate frosting but maybe because the frosting isn’t too sweet, I like it here. I think this tastes more than just an ordinary chocolate cake. Maybe slightly bitter but good still. I think my favorite.
• Fudgy cake texture, maybe a little too moist. Silky frosting with a strong cocoa flavor, maybe a little malted flavor that keeps it interesting and gives it dimension. Subtle boozy flavor all around. With the combo of ultra moist cake and silky frosting this bite is extremely rich!
• Not getting the Guinness at all, though I think I may taste a hint of the malt. That said, it’s a really good chocolate though. Some chocolate cakes don’t really have depth of flavor and are either one-note or sort of lacking in any actual chocolatiness. Not this one — it has an almost toasted quality and feels like a bright, clear chocolate rather than muddled and obscure. Maybe that’s thanks to the Guinness?
• I really liked the lighter texture of this cake and that it had a more pronounced chocolate flavor. I didn’t really taste the Guinness in this but I wasn’t mad about it
• A larger-crumbed cake that is slightly dry with very sweet and chocolatey frosting like a hershey milk chocolate bar. The cake has a less strong beer flavor. I like the chocolate cream cheese frosting combo here.

Recommendations

Erika’s picks: Inquiring Chef, Tasty, Sally’s Baking Addiction, Blue Bowl (frosting)

Crowd favorite: Sally’s Baking Addiction

Best chocolate flavor: Sally’s Baking Addiction, The Rose Wife

Best booze-forward flavor: Inquiring Chef (cake), Pioneer Woman (frosting)

Most outstandingly moist texture: Tasty, Zoe Bakes

Lowest effort/highest payoff: Inquiring Chef

Best fluffy/spongy texture: Nigella Lawson