Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

For some reason, Hoboken celebrates St. Patrick's Day on the first Saturday of March, way before the traditional March 17. I had heard a lot about the craziness of the day, and I felt there was only one possible cupcake I could bake to celebrate the day-Chocolate Guinness cupcakes. The original recipe came from Feast by Nigella Lawson. I had used this recipe once before, and it came out really well so I was happy to revisit it. While the batter is made with beer, the Guinness taste is not very strong and combined with the cocoa powder, it makes for a very dark-colored cake.

Guinness with the more conventional ingredients

You can see that the cocoa powder in the picture is Hershey's. Usually, I think you should use the best ingredients you can find. At my grocery store, that happens to be Ghiradelli, but I've been meaning to locate even better quality cocoa powder. Ghiradelli has been working out pretty well for me, but I really don't like Hershey's.

The cupcakes straight out of the oven

Because I was unsure of exactly how many people my roommate and I were expecting for the festivities, I doubled the recipe and made 36 regular sized cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes. This reminded me how tricky mini cupcakes are. Due to the small size, it is very easy to over bake them. I frosted them with cream cheese frosting, and I think they looked like a pint of poured Guinness.

Frosted cupcakes-intended to look like poured Guinness

Chocolate Guinness Cake Recipe
makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup Guinness stout
1 stick unsalted butter, sliced
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake liners in tins.

2. Pour Guinness into a large saucepan, add butter and heat until melted. Whisk in cocoa powder and sugar.

3. In a small bowl, beat sour cream with eggs and vanilla and then pour into butter-beer mixture and then whisk in flour and baking soda.

4. Pour batter into cupcake tins and bake for 17-20 minutes until cake springs back when touched slightly.