black cherry guinness cake with cream cheese

Serves 6-8

To celebrate the end of UK cherry season, I’ve recreated my classic guinness cake with a black cherry twist. I’ve also swapped in some almond extract and optional kirsch to ring home delectable flavours. I didn’t think the original recipe could get cuter, but then I added fresh cherries for decoration and I was wrong. I recommend baking the cake the night before you serve, so it can cool completely into its fudgey glory.

guinness cake
250 ml Guinness
100 g butter (cubed)
150 g yogurt
2 tsp almond extract
2 tsp kirsch (optional)
275 g all-purpose flour
75 g unsweetened cocoa powder
400 g granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

brown butter cream cheese
60 g butter block
200 g cream cheese
300 g confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp kirsch (optional)
pinch salt

for the guinness cake:

  1. Preheat oven to 170 °C. Grease and line a 9-inch round cake pan well with baking parchment. I recommend a springform pan for ease.

  2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Dry mix together with a whisk. 

  3. In a medium saucepan combine the Guinness, sifted cocoa powder and the cubed butter. Heat the mixture over a medium flame until the butter melts — don’t let it boil. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir yoghurt, almond extract and optional kirsch into the liquid mixture. Set aside.

  5. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined. The batter should be thick but pourable, slightly glossy, with no large lumps. As this is eggless it’s important not to over mix, so I like to stop myself as soon as I can no longer see flour clumps. 

  6. Pour the batter into the greased & lined pan. Bake on the middle oven rack for 35–45 minutes and test with a skewer before removing from the oven. If your cake leaves a has smoothie consistency on the skewer, it needs to cook for longer. If the cake leaves a moist crumb, it’s time to take it out the oven.

  7. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10–15 minutes before removing (it’s too fragile to handle at this stage). Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely - this will take 2-3 hours minimum.

    for the cream cheese frosting:

  8. Add room temp butter to a bowl and whisk on medium until smooth. Add the cream cheese & whisk gently until incorporated before gradually adding the icing sugar. Being sure not to over whisk as it can make things runny.

  9. Add a pinch of salt and optional kirsch before setting to one side.

  10. Spread the cream cheese frosting onto the completely cooled cake. Decorate with fresh cherries.

    Enjoy!