Chocolate Guinness Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.
2. Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
3. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
4. Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
5. When the cake's cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand.
6. For the icing, place the sugar in a food processor and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
7. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency.
8. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

Variations: I often make cupcakes with the mixture, they tend to cook in 20 mins. Often, the the guiness can and sour cream containers are bigger than what is needed here, I make 1.5 times the mixture and make one cake and 9-12 cup cakes and I just simply use a little less icing on the cake so I can top each cupcake.

Serving: Only put the icing on shortly before you need it. As it has fresh cream in it, it will need to be stored in the fridge but the cake does better out of the fridge. Serve in slices as a dessert or with a cup of tea. It is a very moist cake.

Storage: If the cake lasts more than 6 hours I would tend to keep it in the fridge!