Mini Chocolate Stout Cakes

As promised, here is the recipe for the Chocolate Stout Cake we served Saturday night for our friends in Detroit after the Chicken & Mushroom Boxty dinner.

While my best friend and I were out shopping for the ingredients, I came across these miniature individual cake pans at Joann Fabrics.  Because these were just so dang cute, we decided to make individual servings instead of one large cake.

I love that they stack up and therefore are very storage-friendly instead of being connected into one pan.

Everyone loved these, especially drizzled with the rich chocolate ganache and served with the perfect accompaniment of Bailey’s Irish Cream Ice Cream (which started melting while we were trying to snap some shots).

The cake recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen, but I used my own ganache recipe that I love and is super simple.

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Mini Chocolate Stout Cakes

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup sour cream

For the ganache:

• 8 ounces semisweet or dark chocolate chips
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons butter

Instructions

For the Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray 8 miniature cake pans. Place on top of rimmed baking sheet. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. (The mixture seemed separated, but it worked just fine.) Cool slightly.
2. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Pour batter evenly into prepared pans (about 3/4 full). Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool completely in the pans, then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.

Ganache:

1. Pour chocolate chips into a heat-proof bowl. Heat the cream and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until bubbly around the edges. Pour directly into the bowl with the chocolate. Let set for a minute, then whisk until smooth and creamy. Pour over individual cakes and decorate as desired.
2. Cake recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen. Ganache recipe from Pennies on a Platter.

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