The chocolate, beer and yogurt cake with peanut butter frosting!

Otherwise known as Perfection.

Cause seriously, what is not perfect about a cake that combines the best of chocolate, beer, yogurt and wait for it, peanut butter in one whole package?

# – Perfection.

I adapted the recipe (originally called Chocolate Stout Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting) from Donna Hay’s 50th issue, where I replaced stout with lager, sour cream with yogurt and smooth peanut butter with chunky peanut butter.

I love this Donna Hay magazine! If you remembered, I also adapted a very successful chocolate buttermilk layer cake from it.

Anyway, this cake is fluffy and so moist (I suspect that’s the work of the yogurt) with a hint of beer and taste of the chocolate enhanced and heightened by the bitterness from the lager. With the very peanut-ty peanut butter frosting, each spoonful of cake is simply sublime…beautiful!

I particularly love eating it while watching an episode of Glee.

Everyone is bound to like either chocolate, beer, yogurt or peanut butter, so this cake is a sure-winner. If you know of anyone who doesn’t like either one of these…please let me know because I’d really love to shove a lightbulb down their throats because they need to lighten up!

Without further ado, lets see how perfection is attained…

For the cake:

  • 125 ml of beer
  • 115 grams of butter, chopped
  • 35 grams of cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1 egg
  • 80 grams of plain yogurt
  • 150 grams of flour, sifted
  • 3/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda, sifted
  • 180 grams of caster sugar

For the frosting:

  • 160 grams of icing sugar
  • 280 grams of chunky peanut butter
  • 80 grams of butter, softened
  • 80 ml of whipping cream

# – First, heat up a pot and pour the beer into it.

# – Then, throw in the butter and stir till butter has melted.

# – Next, sift the cocoa powder into the beer butter mixture.

# – Whisk till all’s combined. Remove from heat and set aside.

# – Now, in a bowl, break an egg into the yogurt. I can’t stop staring at this picture. Egg yolk gazing should be adopted as a therapeutic treatment.

# – Whisk till they are completely combined. Set aside.

# – Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar too.

# – Now, pour the eggy yogurt mixture into the flour mixture…

# – Followed by the beery chocolaty buttery mixture.

# – Whisk till everything is combined. Now, you’ve got your cake batter!

# – Donna Hay said pour into a loaf pan but because I’m such a rebel, I poured it into a round cake tin lined with parchment paper. Whatever works for you, I say. Stick it into a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees celcius for 1 hour 10 minutes or till cooked (stick a skewer into the cake and pull it out, if there’s no sticky bits means it’s done).

# – When the cake is done, turn it out to cool completely. I’m sorry I’ve got a cracked cake but I prefer to look at it as maximum frosting absorption!

# – Now, it’s time for my favourite part. Frosting!!! Dump the icing sugar, peanut butter and butter into a mixing bowl.

# – Beat till all are combined and creamy.

# – Then, pour in the whipping cream.

# – Beat again till it’s fluffy and creamy and yummy.

# – Set cake and frosting side by side like this. (Okay you don’t really have to do this exactly.)

# – Lay the frosting onto the cake and frost the heck out of it!

# – The chocolate, beer, yogurt and peanut butter cake A.K.A Perfection, DONE!

# – In the background is how the original cake is supposed to look like but I prefer mine obviously because I have more frosting, teeheehee.

I kept the cake in the fridge for about a week and it still tasted so delicious! As the BF said, “this is the kind of good that can’t be bought outside”. Make it happen!

29 thoughts on “The chocolate, beer and yogurt cake with peanut butter frosting!”

  1. This is quite possibly the best chocolate cake in the World EVAR. Amazing, a cake with beer in it?

    KY: You got oven already la, and the recipe is here – no excuses.

  2. That looks so yummy and tempting and one recipe I will have to try at some point. I am like you, good old round cake tins over a loaf tin, my reason is most of my loaf tin jobs don’t turn out right!

  3. Great post! Would love to try baking the cake! May I know which brand of beer did u use? More comfortable using one you have tried and tested!

  4. Lovely looking cake! The crumb looks excellent!

    Anyway, Serge has tricked me into making this cake since he doesn’t have an oven LOL. :P

    So got a couple of questions:

    1. What size is your cake pan? From the pictures it looks like 7″? Love the height and texture of the cake. That’ll be a dream to frost. :)

    2. How’s the consistency of the frosting? I’ve had nightmares trying to frost cakes with a whipped cream frosting so am hoping the peanut butter will help stablize the damn thing.

    1. thank you! haha you’re so nice to oblige him!

      1. you’ve got sharp eyes! it is a 7″ tin!
      2. the frosting was actually quite stable…hope you’ll get the same, if not better result!

      cheers :)

      1. Hello again!

        I finally made the cake over the weekend but it didn’t taste as nice as I had hoped =/

        I actually followed Donna’s original recipe and my cake sampling party of 8 said the cake was average. The texture was of a fudge like consistency, not really moist but the stage after moist where it’s like in between a cake and a brownie. While enjoyable it was not like super wow. The taste of stout was barely there and the frosting got too ‘jelak’ after a while (then again it was probably my fault, cause I torted the cake in 4 layers and had 3 layers of that frosting sandwiched in between when I should have chosen a more neutral frosting and left the peanut butter frosting for just the top)

        Serge was saying maybe the changes you made in the recipe really altered it and made it heavenly. Have you made the original recipe before and what were your results?

        Here are pictures of the experiment:
        https://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/217183_10150167068439926_571824925_6979569_6950174_n.jpg

        https://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/230338_10150169393264926_571824925_7005440_6833996_n.jpg

        https://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/226296_10150169395164926_571824925_7005473_7741378_n.jpg

        1. Hmm, I can’t really comment cause I haven’t made the original recipe. My altered one was really spongy and beery though. Anyway, here are my speculations:

          1. Perhaps you mixed the cake batter too hard, which caused the flour to create a lot of gluten, hence the much denser cake?

          2. Your oven might be too hot, causing it too overcooked?

          3. As for frosting, ya it might be too much in your case….haha! That said, I love frosting and I love your many layers of it!! Do make sure the peanut butter you use is not made of vegetable shortening or something…that might be the cause of the jelak taste? I also used crunchy peanut butter guess the crunchiness offset the rich taste a lot.

          4. Maybe it’s just not your kind of cake, haha.

          That’s all I can think about. Hope the next time around is better!

          Cheers!

          1. Thanks for all the speculations and helping me out! You’re so kind! :)

            I think maybe 1 might be a possible cause? I was thinking that maybe I didn’t allow the heated ‘beer and cocoa’ mixture to cool down enough? The original recipe doesn’t call for this but I’m thinking with too hot a liquid mixture, when mixed with the flour might cause the formation of gluten. Maybe next time I’ll allow it to cool to slightly above room temperature. Did you allow your liquid mixture to cool down before adding it in?

            As for 2, it’s quite unlikely as I used an oven thermometer and calibrate my oven ever so often.

            I’m gonna try it again this time switching out the stout for beer and replacing the sour cream with yoghurt. A friend also mentioned that maybe it’s cause I use Guinness Foreign Extra and next time I should use Guinness draft (LOL I’ll have to go to a bar with my Tupperware to ‘fill it up’)

            Will report my results and hopefully it’ll be better next time around! >_<

            Thank you so much for all your help! :)

          2. PS was there a specific lager that you used? I was thinking of a pale blonde or a heifeweizen or something light?

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