“This cake is crazy-easy and stays contemporary within the fridge for 3 days,” says Irish chef Anna Haugh. “Although it has a excessive sugar content material, the bitter Guinness and bitter buttermilk present stability and, collectively, they’re why the cake stays contemporary for therefore lengthy.

“It’s an excellent birthday cake – the one I make most for folks – that you could make nicely prematurely, as each the sponge and the cream freeze very nicely. Even my son has been fed it, because the alcohol is cooked off.

“This can be a very moist batter, so don’t fear: that’s the way in which it’s purported to be.”

Guinness Chocolate Cake

Serves: 10-12

Components:

For the sponge:

500g Guinness

125g unsalted butter, plus extra for the tins

140g plain flour

200g caster sugar

35g cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch of high-quality sea salt

1 egg, evenly crushed

75g buttermilk

For the cream:

300g double cream

60g icing sugar

50g buttermilk

30g mascarpone

1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out

Methodology:

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1. Place a saucepan below an extraction fan, pour within the Guinness and set over a excessive warmth. Scale back to half the amount (250g). Put aside to chill. Soften the butter in a pan, then go away it to chill.

2. Butter 2 swiss roll tins, every about 30 × 20cm, and line the bases with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 160C fan.

3. Place the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder and salt in a bowl, whisk to combine, then make a nicely within the centre. Add 125g of the Guinness discount with the cooled melted butter, egg and buttermilk and whisk the batter till no lumps are left.

4. Divide the combination between the two ready tins, then bake for 10 minutes.

5. Insert a steel skewer into the centre: when it emerges, it must be clear; additionally the sponge ought to bounce again to the contact. It must be simply cooked, somewhat than overcooked. The combination is moist and you really want to make use of a steel skewer to verify it’s finished within the centre.

6. Depart within the tins to chill, then put a rack over the tins and switch them out. Depart till chilly, then chill. The sponge must be chilled if you’re slicing it to assemble the cake.

7. Halve each chilled muffins widthways, then trim the sponges so you may have 4 matching flat layers that may sit neatly on high of one another.

8. Whip collectively the cream, icing sugar, buttermilk, mascarpone and vanilla seeds to mushy peaks (see beneath). Use this to sandwich the cake layers collectively. Serve in slices, so that you see the layers.

Tips of the commerce: Including mascarpone to double cream is a tremendous tip given to me by a improbable pastry chef, Rey (Hortillosa) Encarnacion from the Conrad Lodge in Dublin. Whenever you add mascarpone to whipped cream, it by no means loses its air and is much less more likely to break up.

‘Cooking with Anna: Fashionable residence cooking with Irish coronary heart’ by Anna Haugh (Bloomsbury, £26).