Now for the cake of, well, I admit it's not the most glorious looking cake, but I will vouch for the flavour. Sweet, chocolately, bit of toffee in the background and not dry if you bake it right. The original recipe uses Guinness beer, which when I first tried it, was also as amazing as using Hobgoblin, but I love the Hobgoblin beer so much I wanted to use it instead of Guinness. Also, the original recipe I snagged from the food section in one of the Chatelaine food sections, no I was not reading the magazine, I go straight for the food, even in House & Home magazines!
Hobgoblin Chocolate Cake
Two round 8" pans needed
Cake Ingredients:
11/2 cups (375 mL) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (175 mL) dutch cocoa
11/2 tsp (7 mL) baking powder
1 tsp (5 mL) baking soda
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
3/4 cup (175 mL) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (250 mL) lightly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
1 cup (250 mL) Hobgoblin
For the icing:
3 cups (750 mL) icing sugar
1/2 cup (125 mL) cocoa powder
1/2 cup (125 mL) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup (75 mL) Hobgoblin
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
Generous pinch of salt
Preheat your oven to 350F. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl, mix it all together after sifting. Get your electric mixer ready and beat the butter and brown sugar for 3 minutes on medium speed. Add your eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is mixed well before you crack the next one in. Add the vanilla and about 1/3 of the cocoa-flour mixture. Now add half a cup of the Hobgoblin, making sure to mix well before the next step, next add in another 1/3rd of the cocoa-flour mixture, add the rest of the Hobgoblin and finish with the rest of the cocoa-flour mixture. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of your electric mixer. Make sure everything is mixed as well as possible. For the pans, I sprayed them with Pam, wiped all inside with a paper towel then put a teaspoon of cocoa and covered the bottom and sides with the cocoa. Pour your cake mixture into your two pans evenly, slip them into the oven on the middle rack for 25 minutes. If you use a toothpick to test if your cake is done and it's not, put it back in for a minute at a time, checking after each minute.
For the icing, sift together the icing sugar and cocoa into a medium bowl. Beat just the butter in the electric mixer for about 2 minutes until creamy. Add half of the icing sugar mixture, vanilla, salt and Hobgoblin, mix well and then add the rest of the icing sugar mixture. Your icing is done!
Take your cakes out of the oven and cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack. Run a knife along the outside of the cake, flip it upside down on the cooling rack (after it's cooled) and then flip it back so the dome is face up. Do this for both layers.
Grab a large plate or whatever you want to put the cake on, take four medium square sized pieces of parchment paper and line them up on the plate so they converge in the middle. Take one layer of cake and put it dome side down on the plate, take your icing and spread it on the top of the first layer, not the sides yet, we'll do that after the next layer. Now put your second layer on top of the first, but this time dome side up. Spread your icing all over the top and sides evenly. The parchment paper helps to not get the icing all over the plate, now you can take each piece out, if the cake starts to go with it, use a spatula to stop the cake from moving so you can take the parchment paper out.
Now your cake is ready to eat!
Enjoy and don't forget to drink the rest of the Hobgoblin in the bottle!
p.s. I love baking, but I love cooking more. Baking is so particular... I love just throwing things together to make something wonderful.
