Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

Nick recently made a sarcastic comment that he "used to know someone who made cupcakes" when he spotted me looking at cupcake wrappers at a store recently. I got a little miffed at first, but then realized I had been lacking on the cupcake making of late.

I quickly remedied that when, after looking through my recipes, I noticed one labeled "Beer Cupcakes". They sounded good, but when I noticed chocolate was involved, I almost changed my mind. I decided, though, that the beer and the cream cheese frosting might make them good enough for even me to like. I was right.
I used an entire bottle of Guinness for one batch of cupcakes, lots of flour, brown sugar, sour cream, vanilla, baking soda, butter and cocoa powder.

First, the Guinness and butter are combined and heated in a saucepan.

Next, the brown sugar and the cocoa get whisked in, and this is where I fell in love. The smell that was coming from the pan was so intoxicating, I wanted to eat it with a spoon right then and there.


But, I didn't. Instead, I continued with the recipe and mixed the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and added it to the beer mixture. Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Glad I finally got a coated whisk!

The flour and baking soda are then sifted together and folded into the beer mixture (batter). Folding is always hard for me, because I never seem to get the two mixtures to incorporate in an amount of time that seems appropriate for not over folding.

Then, bake. As you can see, I had too many cupcakes for one pan, and not enough for two. I have been told that you should space them out in this situation, so they cook more evenly, so that's what I did.
I am really liking cream cheese frosting lately. It is not as overpowering or as greasy seeming as buttercream, and cream cheese frosting seems to compliment, or bring out the flavors, of the cake more. Cream cheese, sugar and milk made a great frosting to top these cupcakes.

These cupcakes had a good beer flavor, they were not too sweet, they were moist, and they went very quickly at our house. I will definitely make these again. And, I guess I have to stop saying how much I don't like chocolate since I've found so many tasty recipes to bake that use chocolate. That's a crazy thought!

Elvis Cupcakes

Elvis is amazing. Some people might not agree, but I think he really is a king. So, in honor of the King's birthday (yesterday), I had to post something. However, I am posting about cupcakes I made last year in honor of the day, since I never got around to posting about them then, and they turned out to be something I just can't think of trying to top for such an occasion.

I got the recipe for banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and candied bacon here. Though, as usual, I made a few modifications. And, please note that though Elvis' famed favorite - the PB and B (peanut butter and banana sandwich) - did not contain bacon, I think it makes a great addition to this sweet treat.

First, I fried some bacon. Oh, beautiful bacon!

Then, I chopped the bacon, put it back in the pan, drizzled some honey and a little brown sugar over it, and cooked it until it became harder, sticky and "candied."

Next, I decided to take a few extra strips of bacon that I had fried and puree them in the food processor to add a little extra goodness to the cupcake base. There are many food/drink things that I love - whiskey, cupcakes, bacon, etc. - as I am sure you have noticed, since I tend to write more about them. So, when the opportunity to combine two of those things arises, I take it! And, let me tell you, bacon in cupcakes is grrreat! ;)

Then, I added the bananas to the bacon and pureed some more.

Next, I combined the bacon banana mush with the other ingredients of the recipe.

Finally, I mixed up the peanut butter frosting (however, I did not use the eggs, but added a little milk instead), frosted the cupcakes, added a few pieces of candied bacon, and viola! Cupcake heaven! We ate the heck out of these, and I am sure the King would've too, given his penchant for peanut butter banana sandwiches, and bacon!

Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

A couple weekends ago Nick and I went to visit our friends Dana (a loyal reader and commenter on here) and her husband Jake (who I hope will become a loyal reader after this post ;) ) Dana and Jake used to live in Milwaukee, only a short distance from our house. However, now they live in Gurnee, IL - not such a short distance. So, we decided a longer, weekend, visit was in order. What better way to spend part of a weekend than baking?

Dana, who doesn't bake too much, was not only up for the challenge of donning her apron and getting dirty, but for writing the blog about it (yay!). So, I will now turn the floor over to her (love her cute apron!)...

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I recently had the pleasure of spending the weekend with a good friend and baking coach! What more could a girl asked for? Too bad Sheri had no idea what she had gotten herself into.

Although I like to bake; my baking skills are lacking. If my baking turns out, it is because I followed a good recipe to the T. So, my goal in having a baking coach around was: learn something new, and something that might help improve my baking from a box skills! (I know baking for a box is not really baking, but sometimes it is necessary.)

I suggested we swap some recipes before the weekend. Before blinking, Sheri flooded my inbox with loads of recipes she had been thinking about. After reviewing the e-mails, I identified what I thought was an ambitious recipe. I could feel the excitement penetrating through my fingers as I responded to the slough of e-mails and thought, “THIS IS THE ONE!” I chose Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the one I wanted to make; everyone loves caramel (even my husband who dislikes sweets) and yummy, chocolate, and they seemed just right for an indulgent weekend with friends. Let the baking begin…

The recipe can be found here, for those of you who like to follow along: http://ibakecupcakes-sarahlyn.blogspot.com/2010/07/chocolate-salted-caramel-cupcakes-save.html)

Step 1 – Put on your adorable apron. Sheri had asked me if there was anything she needed to bring for the weekend. The only suggestion I had was an “adorable apron”, for which she complied.

Step 2 – Get out ALL ingredients. I like to do this so I am not opening cabinets with sticky fingers, which would add one more thing to the cleanup list.

Step 3 – Start baking!

Sheri and I worked really well as a team – adding the dry ingredients to the KitchenAid® mixing bowl before whisking them up. (I learned that standing mixers are not preferred for those who like to “feel” the mixing (i.e., Sheri). For you “feelers” out there, use a hand mixer.)

In my excitement, I immediately added the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Opps number one! The recipe calls for mixing the wet ingredients together in one bowl, the dry in another, then adding the wet to the dry. Well, since the ingredients all went into the same bowl at once, this recipe was an experiment – Do you have to premix the wet ingredients before adding to the dry?

About half way through the mixing of the ingredients, I walked away from the mixer. Opps number two! I quickly learned from Sheri that this is a very bad no-no. Walking away from a standing mixer, that is mixing, can cause over mixing. Over mixing can make the batter more dense and doughy. Who knew? (Apparently Sheri.) This is also why a hand mixer may be better. You will never accidently walk away from a hand mixer while it is running. (If this does happen to you, I suggest you turn off the hand mixer, put away the wine, sober up, and then return to baking.)

After completely mixing the ingredients, the batter seemed runny. I was worried, but Sheri was not. I thought it was a bit too thin, and had Sheri not been there, I would have added more flour. Turned out Sheri was right to leave them be, as the cupcakes baked nicely, though they didn’t rise much. That might have had something to do with oops number two, but we cannot be sure. There must be some reason the wet is mixed before adding to the dry; however, that reason was not discovered with these little cakes.

After the cupcakes cooled, I cut out the centers. Sheri suggested making cones by sticking a knife in at one point and rotating it in a circular motion (and if you have to hand frost the cupcake, cut off the bottom of the cone off, fill the cupcake and replace the top to plug the hole on the cupcake).

Next came the caramel filling and salt sprinkle. Spooning in the caramel filling was easy with it warmed up a bit (we did not make the caramel sauce ourselves, but used store bought). The recipe called for sea salt, but I only had Kosher, and it worked just fine.

Then, Sheri made the butter cream frosting. She did a great job! My ability to get distracted while cooking took hold here and Sheri had the whip up the frosting on her own (Sorry Sheri. This was a baking lesson and since we were not baking the frosting...). All I know is that there was a lot of powdered sugar, butter, milk and cocoa powder. All good things! If we are lucky, Sheri will share her butter cream frosting recipe with us! The consistency of the frosting was marvelous. Sheri used the hand mixer (of course) for this part.

Since I failed to tell Sheri to bring her pastry bags and tips, she suggested using a zip lock bag and cutting off one corner. Again, her idea worked perfectly, making frosting a piece of cake!

TASTE TEST TIME! This is by far my favorite part of baking! Sheri and I both agreed that the little caramel filled chocolate cakes with chocolate butter cream frosting were divine. Sheri did not think the salt would do much, and thought it might be gross, but we were both wrong. Do not leave off the salt! It really adds to the flavor of the caramel and chocolate.

In summary, I learned the following lessons:
1) Mix wet ingredients before mixing with dry, unless you have an expert baker with you.
2) Most importantly DO NOT OVER MIX after you add in the wet ingredients!
3) When making cupcakes filled with something, save the tops of the removed cone to re-plug the filling hole.

Thanks Sheri – I had a great time baking with you!

(KitchenAid is a registered trademark owned by KitchenAid.)

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Maple Cupcakes

For months I had been wanting to make some variation of a maple cupcake, and a couple of weeks ago I finally did. It was a Monday night and it was late, but I decided to try to whip something up. Working with what ingredients and energy I had, it was something quite simple.


I had some plain (and all too buttery) butter cream frosting leftover in the fridge that I added some melted down white chocolate chips and maple syrup to.

For the base, I used the cupcake recipe (found here) that I loved so much for the 60th birthday cupcakes.

I stirred 2 tablespoons of maple syrup in to the batter after combining all the ingredients. This made the batter slightly more liquidy than the last time, but since the batter was still light and frothy, I decided to try it.

The first pan of cupcakes came out only very lightly maple flavored, so I stirred in another tablespoon and baked the rest that way. I included one of the second batch in the picture below so you can see the difference - the more maple syrup, the darker the cupcake.

The darker cupcakes also had a bit more maple flavor, but some of it crystallized into little balls. Though that was sometimes a nice surprise to bite into, I was hoping for a more uniform maple flavor than what I got.

I had my usual taste testers try these and one thought the white chocolate and maple combination was nice, and the other concluded that the overall cupcake was good but the frosting was too sweet. I would have to agree with both.

I have made this cupcake recipe a few times now, and I think it is a definite keeper. I will have to work on the maple additions. Maybe next time I will try putting bacon in the mix!