Whether you’re looking for a St Patrick’s Day dessert or looking to get rid of the surplus stout post-celebrations, Guinness makes a decadent chocolate cake that you don’t need to like stout to enjoy. I like this with a simple icing sugar dusting as it’s so rich, but you could make a Bailey’s buttercream topping to take it up another level.

Chocolate Guinness cake. Photograph: Tor Ince

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

• 100g plain chocolate
• 50g butter or margarine
• Teaspoon baking powder
• 250g flour
• 250g sugar
• 200ml Guinness stout
• Icing sugar, to dust

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180℃ or Gas Mark 4 and line a small cake tin or dish. 
2. Break the chocolate into chunks, then divide into two 50g piles. Set one aside for later, then melt the other half with butter in the microwave or a bain-marie.
3. Add the baking powder, flour and sugar to the butter and chocolate and stir well.
4. Add the stout, then the chocolate chunks; the mixture should be quite dense.
5. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the top is smooth and crisp around the edges but the middle is still slightly soft. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm.