youtube pinterest twitter facebook instagram vimeo whatsapp Bookmark Entries BURGER NEW Chevron Down Chevron Left Chevron Right Basket Speech Comment Search Video Play Icon Premium Nigella Lawson Vegan Vegetarian Member Speech Recipe Email Bookmark Comment Camera Scales Quantity List Reorder Remove Open book
Menu Signed In
More answers

Could I Use Alcohol-Free Guinness For The Chocolate Guinness Cake?

Asked by Julie101. Answered on 19th August 2024

Full question

Could I use an alcohol-free Guinness for the Chocolate Guinness Cake? If so, do I need to change the proportions of sugar or any other ingredients? Thanks.

Chocolate Guinness Cake
Photo by James Merrell
Chocolate Guinness Cake
By Nigella
  • 14
  • 2

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from FEAST) is a damp, rich cake made with Guinness stout. The Guinness provides a slightly ferrous background flavour to the cake, as well as adding liquid to help to make the cake moist. The slight acidity of Guinness also helps the cake to rise, as bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) is used in the cake batter.

The alcohol in the Guinness is not important to the flavour or texture of the cake and most, if not all, of the alcohol evaporates away as the cake bakes. Therefore it is absolutely fine to use alcohol-free Guinness for the cake. There is no need to change the sugar or any of the other ingredients in the recipe and the baking time and temperature is the same.

Tell us what you think