Root Beer Bundt Cake

The only downside to reading so many baking blogs is that occasionally, I’ll come across a recipe that I’d love to try that includes ingredients that I can’t find here in Calgary. A while back, I had started seeing a few recipes for root beer flavored desserts, which was helped along by the use of root beer concentrate. I started looking for root beer concentrate in stores around me, but wasn’t having any luck.

Thankfully, the internet is pretty amazing, and you can find somewhere online that sells root beer concentrate. Or, you can find yourself a blog friend so amazing that she’ll send you a care package that includes your very own bottle of root beer concentrate. (Thanks, Andi!)

You can definitely taste root beer in the cake; I kept waiting for the feeling of the bubbles, but of course they never came. I remedied that with a glass of leftover root beer. I took the advice of Brittany Elise and served my cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, to make it like a root beer float!

Root Beer Bundt Cake
Adapted from If You Give A Girl A Cookie (Who adapted it from Baked)

(Printable Recipe)

Cake:
2 cups root beer (don’t use diet root beer)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 packed brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp root beer concentrate
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a bundt pan.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat root beer, cocoa powder and butter until butter is melted. Add sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.
3. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
4. Whisk eggs until lightly beaten, and then whisk them into the cocoa mixture. Gently fold cocoa mixture into the flour mixture.
5. Pour into bundt pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Frosting:
2 ounces of semi sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup root beer
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
1. Beat butter until smooth. Mix in chocolate, salt and cocoa powder.
2. Slowly beat in icing sugar until incorporated. Mix in root beer.
3. Spread on cooled bundt cake.