I felt in the baking mood again and thought I’d try something different. I follow a few food blogs and had bookmarked this posting for Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting. They sounded delicious so I thought I’d try to make my own but would skip the frosting (have to watch that blood sugar you know). The recipe was only for 12 cupcakes so I decided to double it and did a bit of tweaking to the recipe.

Here are the mini cupcakes:

Here’s the recipe I ended up using:

Ingredients:
4 large eggs, at room temp
1 cup sour cream, at room temp
16 oz Guinness stout beer, at room temp
4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 cup sugar
2-1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
12 tbsp butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Line 2-12 cup cupcakes pans AND 2-12 cup mini cupcake pans with paper liners. Spray the whole thing, cupcake papers and all with nonstick spray (I used Pam nonstick spray with flour) and set aside. (I highly recommend this step as I did not do it for one set of pans and the cupcake ended up sticking to the papers.)
3. Melt butter in microwave then set aside.
4. In stand mixer with paddle attachment, mix eggs and sour cream. Add beer and vanilla and mix until well combined.
5. In a separate bowl, sift all the dry ingredients together (cocoa powder, sugar, flour, baking soda, cinnamon).
6. Add about 1/3 of flour mixture into wet ingredients and blend well. Add the rest of the flour mixture, 1/3 at a time, mixing well after each addition. When all ingredients are blended, add the melted butter then continue mixing until very well combined.
7. I transferred the batter into a measuring cup with a pouring spout so it’d be easier to fill the cupcake cups. Fill each about 3/4 full.
8. Bake at 350 F for approximately 25 minutes for the regular cupcakes and 15 minutes for the mini cupcakes.
9. Cupcakes will be done when a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove pan and place on a wire rack. Let cool for about 10 minutes then remove cupcakes from the pan and let them cool completely on the wire rack.

I think the original recipe was deceiving in being only for 12 cupcakes since it seemed like with doubling the recipe, it made plenty more: 24 regular cupcakes, 24 mini cupcakes (plus a bit of leftover so I used part of a madeleines pan to make 8 cookies).

Since I reduced the sugar and increased the beer, the cupcake was probably too bitter for some people’s taste buds but overall the cake was moist and you could taste the flavor of the Guinness. Next time I’ll try it with the frosting, it’ll probably give it that extra sweetness it needs.