St. Patrick's Day Cake

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Oh, wait... it's April Fool's Day! Oops, I totally missed that too. But no really... Happy St. Patrick's Day! I made this cake for said holiday but didn't have time to get in on the blog in time. You can either file this away for next year or make a chocolate cake with some fun flavors now! Oddly enough I featured a chocolate cake last April Fool's Day. It was instant, remember?

I wasn't able to find a recipe for a very festive Irish cake in any of my cookbooks so I resorted to the Internet. You may find the recipe online here from allrecipes.com and contributed by "jowolf2"
I chose this recipe because it had Guinness in the cake and Bailey's in the buttercream icing! I did alter the recipe (rather omit a step) so I'll note that below. Other than this I followed everything and thought it turned out great. I might make this a March 17th tradition; stay tuned next year to find out!

Perfect St. Patrick's Day Cake 

Ingredients
for the cake
1 cup Irish stout beer (such as Guinness®)
1 cup butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
for the icing
3 cups confectioners' sugar, or as needed
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
3 tablespoons Irish cream liqueur (such as Baileys®), or as needed
for the ganache (which is what I omitted)
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter at room temperature

Directions
    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 2 9-inch cake pans with parchment paper, and spray with cooking spray.
    Pour the beer into a saucepan, add the butter, and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the cocoa powder until the mixture is smooth. Allow the mixture to cool. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sour cream together until smooth with an electric mixer, and stir in the stout mixture to make a smooth, thick liquid.
    In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pour the stout mixture into the flour mixture, and gently combine with a spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.

This photo incorporates all the past steps. From the left, I've got my Guinness and butter ready to go. Then I add cocoa. Next are my eggs and sour cream. Finally in the large bowl is my dry mixture. I went ahead and did this before starting the liquid so I wouldn't get distracted during simmering.

Here's my final batter in the pans.

    Bake in the preheated oven until the cakes are set and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Remove and let cool in pans for 5 minutes before inverting the cakes onto wire racks to finish cooling.

After baking before inverting. A little crumbly but still looking like a cake!

    Mix together the confectioners' sugar, butter, and Irish cream liqueur until the mixture forms a smooth and spreadable frosting (add more sugar or liqueur as needed to create the desired consistency). Spread half the frosting on top of each cake.
    Place the chopped chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Bring cream to almost boiling in a small saucepan, and pour over the chocolate. Stir in the butter, and stir the mixture until the chocolate melts and the mixture is very smooth. Allow to cool until the mixture is pourable but not thin or overly runny, 10 to 15 minutes. Stack a cake gently on top of the other, frosting sides uppermost, and carefully drizzle the chocolate mixture over the cake, allowing decorative drips to run down the sides. (This chocolate drizzle is what I omitted because I thought it didn't really need it / it looked kind of difficult / and I was already pressed for time.)

Ta-da! Sprinkle green sprinkles on top for an extra Irish punch. And if it's lop-sided then you know it's homemade and extra yummy, right?!

As an extra St. Patrick's Day side note I invited friends over for a fun meal. Since the dessert was my Irish centerpiece I didn't worry too much about making bangers and mash for my entree.

Instead I served Chicken Allouette, Sweet Potato Casserole, sauteed green beans, and sliced fresh pineapple.