I reread The Lord of the Rings every summer. I’ve done this for the past seven years, so at this point, you can probably say that I’m a bit of a fan. And today, my friends, is a very special day: it’s Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday!

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, these two characters are the intrepid hobbits who found and then helped destroy The One Ring, which was originally created by the villain Sauron during the Second Age of Middle Earth and wait, where are you going?

Hobbits live the kind of life I want to live — they enjoy eating and drinking, followed by more eating and drinking, and then perhaps with a light dabbling of more eating and drinking. I also get the distinct impression that when there’s a celebration to be had, they do things big and dramatic, including the dessert. I mean, did you see Bilbo’s cake in Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies?

A lot of candles died for that cake. (via)

I don’t have the upper body strength to assemble a cake that size, but whatever I took away in sheer volume, I added back in taste decadence. I figured a hobbit would approve of a luxurious chocolate cake studded with dark chocolate bits — and since a good ale is always appreciated, why not add some of that coffee-like bitterness in there too to make the chocolate really sing? And just for kicks, let’s slather it all in a silky mascarpone frosting to act like a cool glass of milk. This is gonna be good.

And it is. The original recipe for the cake calls for Guinness, but I wanted to kick up the chocolate flavor, so I used a chocolate stout instead. Fun fact: It turns out chocolate stout is super gross as a beer to drink, but works really well in the cake. Feel free to use Guinness instead, though, if it’s easier to find or if you just happen to have a case in your fridge. No need to get crazy here.