Can I Add Some Guinness To The Chocolate Guinness Cake Frosting?

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from FEAST) is a damp, almost gingerbread-like cake with a frosting that resembles the frothy "head" of a pint of Guinness. The frosting is light and melt-in-the-mouth thanks to the combination of cream cheese and double (or whipping) cream.

You may be able to add 1-2 tablespoons of Guinness to the frosting but we feel that this is unlikely to give much of a Guinness flavour. Unfortunately, we would not advise adding a lot of Guinness to the frosting as it will make the frosting too runny and also turn the frosting a light taupe colour, rather than creamy white. So the cake will not look as attractive as with the original frosting. We would prefer to stick with the original frosting recipe and revel in the contrast of the creamy topping and the dark, slighty ferrous chocolate Guinness sponge.