Seeking baker's advice, please, re: Chocolate Stout Cake

A

anna_x

Well-known member
It was good, not great but makes an interesting topic of discussion having Guiness in it on St. Patrick's Day.

I ran low on white sugar so substituted 1/2 lt. brown sugar. I baked half in a bundt pan and put the rest in two small loaf pans to eat later.

The cakes were low and fairly dense. Is this the way they should be? Does brown sugar make it harder to rise?

 
Michelle, would you please post the Guiness Fudge Brownie recipe or point me in the direction of it?

I love the Grammercy Tavern Gingerbread and the
Chocolate Stout Cake. Haven't tried the banana cake but I have it clipped.

Would like to try a brownie recipe.

Thanks for reading,
Ann

 
I'm having trouble figuring out what a dense cake is like...

and whether in the grand scheme, this was a dense cake in general. When I think of dense, I think of a pound cake. It wasn't dense like that. It was more dense than a Betty Crocker kind of cake, but not in a bad way. But it wasn't light like a commercial grade grocery store cake, either.

My guess is when the recipe says, "Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed." Perhaps you beat it longer than the recipe intended...and ended up developing the gluten (which is what makes bread chewy).

If you used a mixer, I've read that sometimes mixers can easily overbeat when incorporating flour. As an example, I have a hand mixer that is really quick...great for making whipped egg whites, not so great for working in flour in baked goods. To avoid overbeating, I usually work in the flour by hand.

Does this help?

 
Overmixing may be the problem...

When I say dense, I mean the batter didn't rise hardly at all and seems heavy. It is a far cry from a cake mix!
I did use a mixer but not very long. It still has speckles of flour in it! Do you think that would cause the cake to not be light?

 
From what I remember it didn't rise significantly but I wasn't really

paying close attention at the time.

I keep trying to come up with other recipes that it reminds me of. I'd say it's closer on the spectrum of my favorite pumpkin quick bread or heading towards a muffin...except my cake was amazingly moist and packed with flavor (which is why it's a favorite of mine).

 
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