Mixing The Chocolate Guinness Cake

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from FEAST) is made by the "melt and mix" method, so the butter is melted with the Guinness, then the sugar, cocoa, eggs and sour cream are added. Finally the flour and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) are whisked in. Sometimes when flour is added to liquid it will form small lumps and this is more likely to happen if the liquid mixture is too warm. The liquid mixture should have cooled with the addition of sour cream and eggs, but you may want to make sure that the Guinness and butter don't boil at all (remove it from the heat as soon as the butter has melted) and cools sufficiently before the eggs and sour cream are added.

It may also help to sift the flour with the baking soda before you add it to the liquid ingredients. This will help to remove any clumps of flour that may have formed while the flour was stored. Flour should be stored in an airtight container in a cool place. You could use cake flour but the measure in cups is slightly different to the all-purpose (plain) flour used in the recipe, and as we have not tested the cake with cake flour to confirm the measurements we would prefer to use all-purpose flour.