Malted Guinness Chocolate Cake with Baileys Frosting

Memorial Day weekend. The cemetery again — Park Hill, where Pappa and Lars are, side by side under headstones that are grayer than they used to be because stone ages the way everything ages, slowly and then all at once. I cleaned the graves on Saturday. Pulled weeds, washed the granite with a cloth, replaced the small Swedish flags. Erik met me there, as he does every year. We stood together in the silence that Johanssons share at graves — not uncomfortable, not empty, just the particular silence of people who have decided that the dead don't need chatter. Lars would be fifty-eight this year. I try not to do the math but I always do — the math of the unlived life, the years he should have had, the birthdays and Christmases and ordinary Tuesdays that were taken from him by a machine at the paper mill in 1979. Thirty-eight years ago. More than twice as long as Lars was alive. The absence has outlived the presence by a factor of two, and still it weighs as much as it did the day Pappa came home with his face broken and said, "Lars is gone." Erik knows. Erik was there. Erik was at the mill that day, twenty-two years old, and he heard the sound and he ran and he — I don't know what Erik saw. He's never said. Johansson men carry grief in their bones, not their mouths. We left the cemetery and drove to Mamma's for coffee. She'd baked — vetebröd, the Swedish cardamom bread that she makes for every occasion and some non-occasions, because Ingrid Johansson bakes the way other people breathe. The three of us sat in her kitchen and ate bread and drank coffee and nobody mentioned Lars, which is how we mention Lars — by not mentioning him while all thinking about him simultaneously. It's a Scandinavian skill. Sunday: Paul and I went to the park for the Memorial Day concert. The high school band played "Amazing Grace" and I cried, which I don't usually do in public but which the song and the day and the cemetery and the bread in Mamma's kitchen conspired to produce. Paul put his arm around me and said nothing. The nothing was perfect. I made brisket for Sunday dinner — slow-cooked for eight hours with onions and garlic and a dark beer that Paul contributes from his personal supply. It's not Swedish. It's American. It's the kind of meal that Paul's family made — the Norwegian-American side, the meat-and-potatoes people who settled in Minnesota alongside the Swedes and married them, eventually, despite Mamma's reservations. The brisket was tender. The evening was long. The house smelled like home. That's Memorial Day in Duluth: remembering the dead and feeding the living and doing both at the same table.

Paul always has dark beer in the house — it goes into the brisket, eight hours of low heat until the whole kitchen smells like something that has been tended to with patience. That night, with Lars still quietly present in the way he always is on Memorial Day, and the house full of the kind of warmth that only a long-cooked meal can produce, I wanted dessert to match: something deep and slow-feeling, something that didn’t apologize for being rich. This Malted Guinness Chocolate Cake with Baileys Frosting is exactly that — it uses the same dark stout that went into the braise, and it sits at the end of a Memorial Day table the way the evening itself did: heavy with meaning, and somehow still sweet.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes (plus cooling) | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness stout (or other dark stout)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons malted milk powder
3/4 cup sour cream, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
Baileys Frosting:
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3–4 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Make the Guinness base. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the Guinness and butter. Stir until the butter is fully melted and the mixture is just beginning to simmer. Remove from heat.
Build the batter. Whisk the cocoa powder, sugar, and malted milk powder into the warm Guinness mixture until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla, then stir into the chocolate mixture.
Add dry ingredients. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt directly into the pan and fold until just combined — a few small lumps are fine. Do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45–55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. The top will look set and the edges will pull slightly from the pan.
Cool completely. Let the cake rest in the pan for 15 minutes, then release the springform and transfer to a wire rack. Allow to cool fully before frosting — at least 1 hour.
Make the Baileys frosting. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and softened butter together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the sifted powdered sugar in two additions, beating between each. Add the Baileys and vanilla, and beat on medium-high until smooth and spreadable. Add a touch more Baileys if needed for consistency.
Frost and serve. Spread the Baileys frosting generously over the top of the cooled cake. The frosting is intentionally thick and creamy — it resembles the creamy head on a pint of Guinness, which is exactly the point. Slice and serve at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Malted Guinness Chocolate Cake with Baileys Frosting — The Dark Beer Paul Keeps for the Brisket