Monday, March 15, 2010

Luck O'the Irish?

I'm not Irish, or at least I don't think I am, but this year for St. Patty's I've decided to embark on a new frontier...Baking with Beer! I love beer, I love brown beer, I love dark ales, I love stouts, so why not bake with them?
They won't be frosted until tomorrow but the cake is delish! Very moist with a nice crumb. I am by no means a master cup cake baker, or cake baker for that matter. This batter proved no different. It was easy enough to throw together and it smelled heavenly in the oven. I knew I was going to be pleasantly surprised when I tasted the batter and found it scrumptious.
This is not a chocolaty cake, and I wouldn't really say that it tastes like Guinness, I might try making it again without the cinnamon so that I can get more beer flavor. The plan is to frost with a simple cream cheese frosting (you know the one, 8oz cream cheese, 4tbsp butter, a tsp vanilla, 5 cups or so of powdered sugar..just beat the crap out of it until it is the right consistency).























Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

4 eggs
1 cup plain thick yogurt (greek style) or sour cream - they taste different in the batter but its a preference thing
12 oz guinness at room temp (or other dark stout)
4tsp vanilla
1 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)
12 tbsp melted and cooled butter

Heat oven to 350
Prepare your vessels (I used cupcake liners this time but sometimes I use paper souffle, also called nut, cups) you don't need to butter or flour these but if you want to make a cake with this batter, grease your pan then line with parchment paper and grease the top of the parchment then dust the pan with cocoa powder (since this is a chocolate cake)
Melt butter in the microwave (don't go crazy here..just melt it)
Whisk together the eggs and yogurt (or sour cream), add guinness and vanilla.
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, soda and cinnamon
Add dry to wet (1/3 at a time) either with a hand mixer or a stand mixer with the whisk attachment
Once all the dry is completely mixed into the wet slowly pour the melted butter in while still blending
I like to use a 1/4 cup scoop (cookie scoop, ice cream scoop whatever you call it, it has a sweeper to get all the batter out) to fill my cups, if I am using souffle cups they get a little more than this but this is the perfect size for cupcakes.
Bake 20-25 minutes - follow your nose, when you smell baked good fairly strongly they are probably done and ready to be checked. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out with some crumbs.
Cool on a wire rack and frost as desired.

If you are baking a cake I would say you probably should start with 30 minutes but again, follow your nose!

That was my fun little st. patty's day tribute for the year. I might still bust out some corned beef and cabbage.
It's been a while since I have posted. I had a fun little adventure teaching a co-worker to make spice cake from scratch but blogging wasn't part of the equation. Hopefully life will situate itself so that blogging becomes a little easier.

Eat up!

(update the next night.. frosted little beauties! One day I will learn how to frost and decorate..maybe...it takes more patience than I have)

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