Mini Chocolate and Stout Cakes filled with Baileys Style Irish Cream – dairy-free recipe

By lucylox on March 15, 2025

You know what comes to mind as the 17th March approaches; Guinness or stout and any food or drink that's green, all in honour of St Patrick and the Emerald Isle.

I haven't come across many examples of stout used in plant-based or allergy-friendly recipes, so it was high time that i experimented with the black stuff! If you don't like alcohol there are some really good alcohol-free stouts these days, or like the one i used from Small beer that is lower alcohol content but still all the flavour. After all, a recipe for St Patrick's Day just has to feature stout of some kind, and stout goes so well with chocolate that it was the obvious choice.

These little cakes are inspired by the Ottolenghi classic little Chocolate Guinness cakes with Baileys Irish Cream that are a perennial feature in his delis, with the recipe appearing in his cookbook Sweet. On the few times I've been lucky enough to go to an Ottolenghi deli, I've always admired these beautiful little indulgent looking cakes, so they were an obvious choice to have of my list of must make recreations; and since they feature both Guinness and Irish Cream, they're obviously perfect for St Patrick's Day.

I have, as usual, taken the recipe and turned it into a friendly and easier incarnation. So here we have delicate, little chocolate and stout cakes, filled with an Irish creme cheesecake mix, made using Panther Milk, which if you haven't come across it before, tastes just like Baileys but is entirely dairy-free. We bought it at the Manchester Vegan Fair when I did a demonstration last year, but you can also buy it online. These filled cakes are then iced with a rich chocolate ganache and garnished with a flourish of beautiful shaved chocolate. In my mind, they're a pretty good reinvention of the originals, although i have to say I've never tasted the original ones so if any of you have and fancy giving my recipe a go, for comparison's sake, then please let me know your thoughts.

I have to say that the biggest faff of this recipe is turning the delicate cakes out of the moulds, so i would perhaps suggest making them in cupcake liners, just to make your life easier!

So, if you're celebrating St Patrick's Day, and want to avoid milk, eggs and nuts, then this is most definitely a celebratory luxurious recipe to try! As these little cakes are both luxuriously indulgent, but also surprisingly light, they make the perfect teatime treat or dessert.

Chocolate Stout Mini Cakes filled with a Baileys style Irish Cream

Delicate little chocolate cakes, filled with a Baileys style Irish Cream and topped with a rich chocolate ganache and shaved chocolate

dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame, vegetarian and vegan

mini pudding moulds

60 ml stout or Guinness
15 g cocoa powder
60 ml dairy-free milk
40 g golden syrup (or maple syrup)
30 ml sunflower oil (or other flavourless oil)
½ tsp white wine vinegar
½ tsp vanilla extract
30 g caster sugar
70 g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 pinch salt

for the Irish cream filling

50 g dairy-free cream cheese
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp Panther Milk (or other vegan Irish cream, or use Whiskey or just use vanilla if alcohol-free)

for the ganache

50 g dairy-free dark chocolate
50 ml dairy-free cream
1 tsp golden or maple syrup
1 tsp dairy-free butter

to top

1 small bar of dairy-free chocolate

to make the cakes

Preheat the oven to 180℃. grease the pudding moulds, or place four cupcake liners in a tray
Warm the stout and then whisk together with the cocoa until no lumps remain. Mix in the milk, syrup, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Then stir in the sugar, until dissolved
Sift in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix to form a very wet cake batter.
Pour into the moulds/cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.
Cool before removing from the moulds (if this is proving tricky then it;s easiest to freeze the cakes before unmoulding)

to make the filling

whisk together the cream cheese, icing sugar and Irish cream. Place in a piping bag
Make a small slit in the top of each cake and pipe in the cream

to make the ganache

Gently melt together the chocolate, cream and syrup. Once fully melted, stir in the butter to make a lovely glossy ganache.
spoon over each cake
make chocolate shavings and use to decorate the top of each cake

cake, Dessert

chocolate and guinness cake, Chocolate and stout cake, St Patrick's Day