Bailey’s Chocolate Poke Cake

Adapted slightly from Life, Love & Sugar

A rich, moist and decadent Bailey’s chocolate cake soaked in a Bailey’s chocolate fudge sauce and topped with Bailey’s chocolate whipped cream.

Yesterday, as I was mourning one coworker’s death, it was another coworker’s birthday. Where I work, it feels like our coworkers are almost like family. We work so hard, solving hard problems together every day and we really care about each other. On my birthday, my boss made me Irish Car Bomb cupcakes and they were so good that we decided we need to celebrate every birthday on our team with a boozy dessert.

And then a few days ago, another one of my other coworkers shared this recipe for Bailey’s Chocolate Poke Cake on facebook and tagged me … and immediately I knew that this was the boozy dessert for our next birthday celebration.

I’d promised Amber I’d bring her birthday cake on Monday, so this morning I woke up ready to bake a cake. I didn’t have a whole lot of time before my morning yoga class, though, so I wanted to get started straight away. I mixed together the dry ingredients and then started dumping in the wet ingredients … luckily before I added the water, I looked back at the recipe and it only wanted me to put half of the cup of Bailey’s in the batter. Oops! My son was watching me as I was mixing up the cake and he said to me, “oh no” … what now?” No worries! I simply adjusted the amount of water down so the total liquid in the cake was the same and went on with the recipe. I mean, how can doubling the amount of Bailey’s in the cake batter really be a bad thing?

Shortly before it was time to run off to yoga, I pulled the cake out of the oven, poked it all over, then poured the Chocolate Bailey’s fudge sauce over and smoothed it around to cover the whole cake and ooze down into the holes. I let it cool while I was at yoga, then when I got home, I made the whipped cream for the top. My kids were both watching me as I did this, hovering like they couldn’t wait to taste the cake. “Are you going to cut the cake?” they asked … oh yes, of course, I have to take pictures and sample it, right? And yes, you can have a piece. I’m sure Amber won’t mind sharing a bit of her boozy birthday cake.

The cake turned out super rich, fudgy, decadent. So I’m writing the recipe just as I prepared it, with a whole cup of Bailey’s in the batter, another half cup in the fudge sauce and 2 more Tablespoons in the whipped cream. I also tweaked the fudge sauce a bit, to give it a bit more depth of flavor.

FYI: I could only eat less than half my piece, it was so rich … and my daughter couldn’t finish hers either. So I recommend cutting the pieces small.

Bailey’s Chocolate Poke Cake

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 45 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
• Yield: 16 - 24 1x

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the cake:

• 2 cups (260g) all purpose flour
• 2 cups (414g) sugar
• 3/4 cup (85g) unsweetened dutch cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup (180ml) milk
• 1 cup (240ml) vegetable oil
• 1 cup (240ml) Baileys Irish Cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup (180ml) boiling water

For the gooey chocolate “poke” layer:

• 1/2 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
• 1 cup (240ml) sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 cup (127g) dark chocolate chips
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

For the topping:

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1/4 cup dutch cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 Tablespoon cornstarch (to stabilize the whipped cream)
• 2 Tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

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Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 300 F. Spray the bottom and sides of a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan with cooking spray (or use butter or oil to grease the pan).
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients for the cake. Stir in all the liquid ingredients except the water, then add the water at the end, stirring to incorporate into the batter.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 – 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.
4. Remove the cake from the oven and use the bottom of a wooden spoon or other round utensil to poke holes in the cake all over. Put the 1/2 cup Bailey’s, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 90 seconds. Stir until the chocolate is incorporated and there are no chunks left. If needed, microwave another 30 seconds, then stir some more.
5. Pour this fudgy sauce over the warm cake, spreading it over to cover and drip into the poked holes.
6. Put the cake in the fridge or other cool place to chill. Once it is completely cool, whip the cream until soft peaks start to form, then stir in the cocoa, powdered sugar, cornstarch, Bailey’s and vanilla. Beat a little more until there are stiff peaks and everything is mixed together well, using a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl and incorporate everything nicely.
7. Spread the whipped cream over the cake. If desired, sprinkle the top with mini chocolate chips and/or a drizzle of chocolate syrup.
8. Store covered in the fridge until serving time.

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Notes

RECIPE SOURCE: http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/

© Copyright 2018, Sumptuous Spoonfuls. All images & content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to publish any of my images, please ask first. If you want to republish this recipe as your own, please re-write the recipe in your own words or link back to this post for the recipe.

This recipe was shared at Happiness is Homemade, Amaze me Monday and What’s for Dinner?