Desserts & Baking

Chocolate lager cake with hot cross bun cream cheese icing

By Khanya Mzongwana
8
Easy
10 minutes
45 minutes

“I am mighty impressed with myself for having baked this. It’s delicious – and the beer can be replaced with your personal favourite – I find that stout is popular in these kinds of cakes, with good reason! I used an alcohol-free beer. There’s a rich, caramelly almost yeasty flavour that beer and chocolate create when combined, which is hard to beat.” – Khanya Mzongwana

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Ingredients

Method
  • 400 g white sugar
  • 185 g butter
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • 400 g white sugar
  • 400 g cake flour
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 400 g cake flour
  • a pinch of salt
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 90 g cocoa powder
  • a pinch of salt
  • 340 ml beer of choice (I used Devil’s Peak Zero to Hero)
  • 90 g cocoa powder
    • For the hot cross bun cream cheese icing:

  • 340 ml beer of choice (I used Devil’s Peak Zero to Hero)
  • 250 g cream cheese
  • ½ cup cream
    • For the hot cross bun cream cheese icing:

  • 250 g cream cheese
  • 100 g icing sugar
  • ½ cup cream
  • 1 t mixed spice, plus extra for dusting
  • 100 g icing sugar
  • 1 t mixed spice, plus extra for dusting

Method

Ingredients

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Grease a 20 cm cake tin (or two) with non-stick cooking spray and line the bottom with baking paper.

2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and smooth using an electric beater. Beat in the eggs in one by one until combined.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder into the butter mixture and fold through gently. Stir in the beer until combined.

4. Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake for 35–40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire cooling rack until ready to use.

5. To make the icing, beat all the ingredients together until combined and smooth. Ice the cake and dust on a bit of mixed spice if you like.

Find more cake recipes here. 

Photograph: Jan Ras
Videography: Romy Wilson
Production: Khanya Mzongwana
Food assistant: Emma Nkunzana
Khanya Mzongwana

Recipe by: Khanya Mzongwana

If you're anything like our deputy food editor Khanya Mzongwana, you're obsessed with uniqueness and food with feeling. Cook her family-tested favourites, midweek winners and her mouth-wateringly fresh takes on plant-based eating.

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Comments

  • default
    Rose Westbrook
    6 April 2022

    Think there are a few duplications in the recipe for the lager chocolate cake …..bit confusing !

    1. Annzra Denita
      11 April 2022

      Hi Rose, thank you for catching it. It is due to a bug in our system. We will fix it shortly. Best, Annzra Denita – Online Editor.

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