Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

I was very intrigued by this recipe as it called for the addition of stout as one of its key ingredients. Who would have thought of using beer in a cupcake! I guess for beer drinkers, they would probably consider this as a sheer waste of good stuff!

Instead of using Guinness as stated in the original recipe, I bought a can of ABC stout. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it's a beer manufactured for Asian market. The fact that it cost much less than a can of Guinness prompted me to pick it up from the supermarket shelf. For your info, beer plus all other alcoholic beverages are very expensive here in Singapore. The government truly does not encourage it's citizens to drink, thus such beverages are slapped with a very high import duty. This can of ABC stout put me back by SGD3.70 (USD2.50). Thus economies of scale had to be applied here (I knew my 101 Economics would come in useful one day) as a Guinness would have set me back by another SGD1.00.


I halfed this recipe and it nicely produced me with 12 cupcakes, which is neat in my books as it just required me to use one cupcake pan only, plus one baking rack. Any more I would have to think of who to "off-load" it to since my hubby doesn't eat cake at all. Surprisingly there is no whiff or taste of the stout at all once the cupcakes were baked. My hubby did comment that it smelt "like bread" when it was in the oven. The cupcakes were extremely moist and soft, with a hint of chocolate. To sum it, it was yummy!



Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
(makes 24 cupcakes)

Recipe from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar (I reduced the sugar slightly)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

2) Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

3) Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend.

4) Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend.

5) Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.

6) Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.

7) Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 - 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely before icing it with creme chantilly which I had used in another cake recipe. This icing is light and not sweet at all. The cupcakes can be kept in the fridge for 2 - 3 days.

Crème Chantilly:

2 cups heavy cream
3 Tbsp icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the cream, sugar and vanilla in a chilled bowl and whip until the cream is stiff but not too thick or buttery.