Chocolate Stout Cake

Happy Birthday Trevor!

Today is Trevor's 29th birthday, or more importantly, his last birthday as a non-dad.  We had some friends over for dinner last night and Trevor happily grilled up three racks of ribs (2 St. Louis, 1 Baby Back) for his birthday dinner.  I contributed a German Potato Salad and a green salad with some carrots from our garden.  I also baked a birthday cake... a dense, chocolatey bundt cake droozled with chocolate ganache.   I am not a frequent cake baker so I was nervous about how this was going to turn out.  Fortunately, it turned out DELICIOUSLY.  I followed a recipe I found over on Smitten Kitchen which was adapted from a Bon Appetit recipe and halved to fit a bundt pan.  I think my bundt pan may be on the small side as this was too much batter for my pan by about a cup.  Be sure to have a gallon of milk handy, along with some fresh strawberries for serving.  

Chocolate Stout Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Cake Ingredients:
1 cup stout (I used Imperial Stout)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter + 1 tbsp for buttering your bundt pan
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
Ganache Ingredients:
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee or espresso granules
Cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour or spray a bundt pan very thoroughly.  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. Cool slightly.

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 into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 35-50 minutes (orig. recipe says 35, it took me about 50). Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan, then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.

Ganache: 

For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.