Layered Chocolate Guinness Cake

Asked by Aussieinlondon. Answered on 28th June 2015

Full question

I am making an Irish theme cake and would like to use the Chocolate Guinness Cake to do this but as I will need to use 2 cakes to make it tall enough I was wondering what the best flavour of icing to use between the layers? I will be covering the cakes with a vanilla fondant. Thank you

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake (from Feast and on the Nigella website) is made in a springform cake pan so it is quite a deep cake and you should be aware that sandwiching two together will make a very high cake. Once you have baked the first cake you may want to check to see if it is better to cut the single cake in half horizontally and just fill the centre.

The icing in Nigella's recipe contains a combination of cream cheese and double cream and this should ideally be kept in a very cold place or preferably in the fridge. Unfortunately fondant icing (ready to roll icing/rolled fondant) should not be stored in the fridge as it tends to form beads of condensation on the surfance once the cake is removed from the fridge. So we would suggest instead using a vanilla buttercream for the filling, and one that does not need refrigerating. The buttercream can also be used in a thin layer over the surface of the cake before applying the fondant icing.