Guinness Chocolate Cake With Fondant Icing

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from Feast and on the Nigella website) is very popular and to make a double layer cake you should be able to slice the cake horizontally in two and sandwich it back together. We suspect that it is possible to cover the cake in rolled fondant/ready to roll icing as the cake is quite robust. However bear in mind that the cake is also quite moist so we would not cover it more than one day in advance.

As you should not refrigerate a fondant iced cake we suggest that you use a slightly different cream cheese frosting as the double cream in the frosting on the Guinness cake makes it a little more perishable. You could try the buttery cream cheese frosting from Nigella's Red Velevet Cupcakes (from Kitchen and on the Nigella website). You can use this to fill the cake. To make sure that the fondant sticks to the cake you may want to cover it first in a very thin layer of frosting or brush the surfacres with a little apricot jam that has been warmed and slightly thinned with a few drops of water.

Alternatively you could cover the cake in the cream cheese frosting suggested by Nigella. You are likey to need a double quantity to fill and cover the cake.