Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes w/ Irish Cream Frosting

For years, I have been making this cake using the recipe that my friend Dennis had generously provided me. Not that there was anything wrong with his recipe, I just wanted to know for myself why there was a great number of recipes out for for Chocolate Stout Cake. And so I have made it a point to try different ones to see which are better. I've also used other stouts as well, especially when I'm making a vegan version.

When I saw that King Arthur had their own Chocolate Stout Cake recipe, I had to give it a whirl.

What You Need
2 cups stout or dark beer, such as Guinness
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups Dutch-process cocoa
4 cups AP flour
4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line your muffin pan(s).

[I unfortunately only have one muffin pan. :(]

2. Place the stout and butter in a large, heavy saucepan, and heat until the butter melts. Remove the pan from the heat, and add the cocoa powder.

3. Whisk until the mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

4. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; set aside.

5. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and sour cream.

6. Add the stout-cocoa mixture, mixing to combine.

7. Add the flour mixture and mix together at slow speed. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, and mix again for 1 minute.

8. Divide the batter equally among the muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes.

9. Remove the muffin pan from the oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes before you remove the cupcakes from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack before frosting.

I unfortunately don't remember what recipe I used for the butter cream, specifically. I used one stick of room temperature unsalted butter and a bunch of powdered sugar (sorry, I usually don't measure, I just add a bit until I get the consistency I like) and then intermittently add some Irish cream until I get the consistency and flavor I like.



BTW, this made a LOT of cupcakes, which is good to know. Like, at least 4 dozen cupcakes. I gave some to my stylist since she was coming in on her day off to give me a haircut, I brought a bunch to work, and I also brought a bunch home to my family in IL. My sister-in-law and nephews were visiting for spring break then.

Also, this is my current favorite recipe for Guinness Chocolate Cake.

Susan and Gracie's Amazing Butter Cookies

My nephews were going to be in the Midwest for their spring break and I wanted to make some treats for them while they were going to be around. Since I had the whole sugar cookie thing down, I wanted to see how different butter cookies were as far as taste and texture.

I also really wanted to make something from Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence which also happened to have a butter cookie recipe as well. I had a couple of other recipes to choose from, but this one seemed the easiest.

What I Used
1 1/3 cup unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
8 tsp milk
4 cups wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder

1. Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate overnight.



2. When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

3. Roll out the dough and use cookie cutters to make your shapes.

4. Place on a cookie sheet (I used parchment paper too) and bake for 6-8 minutes.

5. After cookies were cooled, I refrigerated them. Frosting them took place as a group activity at my mom's house. My sister was pretty stoked about decorating them, especially because she just saw an episode of Martha Stewart where they were decorating sugar cookies.



Something to note: cookies remained soft without frosting on them, unlike sugar cookies.