How do you Celebrate Michigan’s Birthday?

With Beer.

Nothing quite says “celabrate” when it comes to the Great Beer State celebrating its 176^th birthday quite like beer. Well, beer and cake. Preferably together and with a side of beer, too. Without further ado, here is Michigan’s birthday cake; a chocolate stout cake with stout buttercream icing.

Note: For the stout I used Right Brain Brewing's CEO Stout, recently available in 22 oz. bottles, because I wanted a nice coffee note to the cake. If you are in the Grand Rapids area I would suggest stopping by Perrin Brewing for a growler of the vanilla stout, which would taste fantastic as well as leave lots of beer left over for you. I stayed away from imperial stouts because I didn't want to waste the high alcohol content and end up crying while reducing the  beer. 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease three 8-inch cake pans. Bring 2 cups stout and 2 cups butter to simmer in a heavy saucepan. Add cocoa powder and whisk smooth. Let cool.

In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, baking soda and 1 ½ tsp. salt together. In a different bowl, use an electric mixer to beat eggs and sour cream together. Add the stout/chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat to combine. Add flour mixture slowly while briefly beating. Add the chocolate chips and fold batter with a rubber spatula to completely combine. Pour batter evenly into the three pans. Bake 35 minutes and cool 10 minutes before popping the cakes out of their tins to further cool.

For the Icing:

Reduce the cup of stout by simmering it for roughly 20 minutes on the stovetop or until there is about a ¼ cup left. Next, blend the ½ cup of butter with 1/8 cup of the reduced beer until light and fluffy. Gradually add in alternating increments the white sugar and the powdered sugar until the frosting is the right consistency. Taste, and if preferred, add more beer for flavor. Now frost your cooled cake layers and stack together. Attempt to draw the state of michigan on the top of the cake with colored icing. Fail or give up, grab a beer and eat the cake already. 

Happy Birthday, Michigan! Eat up! Drink Up!

Cake (courtesy of epicurious)

2 C. stout 

2 C. unsalted butter

1 ½ C. unsweetened cocoa powder

4 C. flour

4 C. sugar

1 T. baking soda

1 ½ T. salt

4 eggs

1 1/3 C. sour cream

1 ½ C. bittersweet chocolate chips

Stout Buttercream Frosting

1 C. stout

½ C. butter

1 C. powdered sugar

1 C. sugar