Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze
This Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze features a moist, dense chocolate cake topped with a delicious drizzle of Guinness glaze. This recipe is perfect for St. Patrick’s Day parties!
There’s just something about the combination of chocolate and Guinness. The malty sweetness of the Guinness pairs quite well with the chocolate. And of course everything tastes better in cake form, right?
With St. Patrick’s Day coming up soon, I thought it might be fun to incorporate Guinness into a chocolate cake recipe. We always keep a few cans of Guinness in the basement beer fridge, so I reached in and pulled one out for this recipe. (And since the recipe doesn’t call for a whole can, I made sure not to waste the extra Guinness!)
Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze
I thought about incorporating the Guinness into the actual cake batter, but I opted for just a plain chocolate pound cake instead. I’ve made this chocolate pound cake several times over the years, and I knew it was a good one. Why mess with a good thing!?
Of course, with that said, I do think you could substitute half of the milk in this pound cake recipe for Guinness. In addition to adding liquid to the batter, the milk also serves to soften the cake once it’s baked. For this reason, I would use at least ½-milk, ½-Guinness if you do go that route.
Guinness Glaze
Truthfully, I could eat this chocolate pound cake by itself – it’s that good! It’s a moist cake with just enough richness to be satisfying without being over the top. However, I felt like a good chocolate Guinness glaze would be a fun addition here. After all, more chocolate = more better, right?
This Guinness glaze is a simple combination of confectioner’s (powdered) sugar, cocoa powder, Guinness, half-and-half and vanilla extract. It’s easy to make, and it hardens up nicely once you let it rest. The Guinness flavor is not over-the-top at all. In fact, you might not notice the Guinness flavor if you didn’t see it go into the glaze. However, this glaze has fantastic flavor, and I do think the Guinness adds a unique boost.
I opted to add a vanilla glaze on top of the Guinness glaze simply because this is a chocolate cake with a chocolate glaze. The white vanilla glaze adds a fun visual appearance, but it is totally not needed for flavor. Feel free to keep it (it looks cool!) but also feel free to admit it – this Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze will be delicious either way!
As with all pound cakes, make sure to generously grease and flour the pan. There’s nothing worse than flipping a pound cake over only to find half of the cake stuck in the pan! (Yes, I’ve been there.) To solve this problem, I grease the pan with vegetable shortening and then dust it with flour. Nonstick spray is great for most recipes, but I’ve found that it doesn’t quite do the job for pound cakes. I keep a small container of vegetable shortening on the baking shelf of the pantry for just this reason!
I hope you enjoy this Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze as much as we did! I actually took this cake with me on an out-of-town curling tournament, and my teammates and I enjoyed slices of this cake in the evenings. (Ok, there might have been a slice eaten for breakfast one day. Hah!) I hope you enjoy this cake as much as we did!
Did you make this Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze at home? Leave a comment, or snap a photo and tag me on Instagram (@Spicedblog) – I’d love to see your version!
Chocolate Pound Cake with Guinness Glaze
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Pound Cake
- 1½ cups unsalted butter room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs room temperature
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
For the Chocolate Guinness Glaze
- 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- ⅓ cup Guinness
- 2 Tbsp half-and-half
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
For the Vanilla Drizzle
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 2 Tbsp milk
Instructions
For the Chocolate Pound Cake
- Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan; set aside.
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Using a countertop mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (~2-3 minutes on medium speed.)
- Add eggs one at a time; mixing after each addition until just combined.
- Add remaining ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, milk and vanilla). Mix until well combined, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl as needed.
- Using a spatula, pour batter into greased Bundt pan.
- Bake for 90-95 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into cake comes out mostly clean.
- Let cake cool in pan for 30 minutes and then transfer to a baking rack until completely cool. (Note: This is a good time to make the glaze.)
- Spoon Chocolate Guinness Glaze over the top of cake. Let glaze harden slightly before adding the drizzle on top.
- Using a piping bag with a small round tip (or a sandwich bag with one corner snipped off), drizzle the Vanilla Drizzle on top of the cake. Let set for 20 minutes before slicing and serving.
For the Chocolate Guinness Glaze
- Using a medium bowl, whisk all of the glaze ingredients together until smooth (confectioner’s sugar, cocoa powder, Guinness, half-and-half and vanilla extract).
For the Vanilla Drizzle
- Using a small bowl, whisk the confectioner’s sugar and milk together until smooth.
Looking for more fun recipes for St. Patrick’s Day? Check out these other favorites, too:
Cant wait to make this soon for me for the cake can i use vegan butter and oat milk / for the glaze can i skip guinness and use nutella and coconut cream and drizzle can i use oat milk i never had chocolate pound cake with guinness glaze before perfect for my after office snacks love your recipes as always brightens up my day everyday after work
So I can’t speak to the vegan butter and oat milk, but I can say that Nutella makes for an excellent glaze on a chocolate pound cake! In fact, I made that exact recipe before, and it was quite tasty. 🙂
Sounds like a yummy way to use Guinness. The cake looks nice and moist. I always love a good chocolate cake.
A good chocolate cake is hard to beat! But then go add a Guinness chocolate glaze, too? Now you’re talking! Haha. Thanks, Dawn!
What a wonderful recipe, David! I’ve made a chocolate cake with stout in the batter. Having it in a glaze sounds great, because I think you’d be able to taste the flavors separately, which would be cool. I was wondering how you got a Guinness glaze so white, until you explained about the extra glaze. I do agree 👍.
This cake truly is delicious, Jeff – I always have fun baking and cooking with Guinness this time of the year. I’m such a sucker for holidays! The white drizzle was a last second addition when I realized that the cake was chocolate-on-chocolate. I needed something to brighten it up a tiny bit!
this looks pretty delicious david. i get hubby to do the greasing of cake tins for me. he seems to have a special talent:-)
Haha – you should rent out Mr. P’s pan-greasing services. You could make a bundle! 🙂
Nice. My husband’s favorite beer is Guinness, so I know he’d love this! The cake looks really good.
Thanks so much, Mimi! I know you aren’t into desserts as much, but this is a fun one…especially with St. Patrick’s Day coming up soon! 🙂
What a great looking cake! My husband isn’t a huge dessert person, but I’m betting this cake will have him coming back for seconds!
I wish I was like your husband and could walk away from cake – haha! This is a fun cake recipe (especially for March when St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner). Thanks, Kathy!
Guinness on a cake, this is something new to me. That looks really moist.
This pound cake is delicious, Raymund! And Guinness pairs quite well with chocolate!
Oooh, look at that texture of the chocolate pound cake! I’ve never baked with Guinness, but it looks like I’ll have to give it a try soon!
Oh, you should totally try this pound cake, Michelle – it’s SO good! The Guinness flavor isn’t overtly noticeable, but it does give a nice depth of flavor. Enjoy!!
I love the depth of flavor that Guinness adds to sweets and this pound cake has the perfect texture. Great idea to boost the flavor even more with a vanilla drizzle. Talk about mouthwatering!
Guinness really is a unique ingredient – I love how the flavor intensifies recipes without taking over the flavor! I hope you enjoy this cake, Marissa!
I love using alcohol in cooking and baking, but I don’t think I’ve ever used Guinness or any other beer. This cake looks fantastic and sounds tasty. Really great texture – moist, crumbly, airy, rich. So inviting! (I mean, I am inviting myself to your house to enjoy a slice of cake and coffee.)
Ah – it’s time to break into the Guinness for baking, Ben! The malty flavor of stout beer pairs really well with chocolate. I find that the beer flavor doesn’t come through as beer, but rather produces a deeper flavor. It’s awesome! And I’m perfectly fine if you invite yourself over to our house. 🙂