Guinness Cupcakes

Jillsybean's Note:

Nigella Lawson's Guinness Cake is much talked about. This is a downsized version of my adaptions to her recipe, perfect for making 12 delicious cupcakes that look like miniature pints of Guinness. It's a bit of a grown up delicacy, the flavours might be a little rich for young kids, but chocoaholics and Guinness lovers will be delighted.

• Total Time: 45 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 12

Yield: 12.0 cupcakes

For the cupcakes

• 125 ml Guinness stout (This works out to 1/2 bottle so you get to drink the rest, or make double the amount of cupcakes if )
• 75 g butter
• 100 g sour cream
• 60 g cocoa
• 1 medium sized egg
• ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain flour
• 300 g caster sugar (Very fine caster sugar results in a denser cake in my experience)
• 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

For the cream cheese icing

• 300 g icing sugar
• 50 g butter
• 125 g cream cheese

Directions:

1. For the cake:.
2. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius (325 Farenheit).
3. In a pan, on the hob on a low heat, melt butter and Guinness together.
4. Keep pan on heat, so long as the mixture isn't bubbling too much and add cocoa and sugar.
5. Beat the sour cream with the egg and the vanilla. This will look like you've scrambled the egg, don't be concerned.
6. Stir sour cream and egg mixture into the pan.
7. Combine baking soda and sifted flour in a separate bowl. It's important to do this because the baking soda is going to react with the wet ingredients.
8. Stir in the flour/baking soda mix to the mix in the pan. You will get what looks like brownie mix. Dark in colour, brilliant smelling.
9. Pour this mix into cupcake cases in a cupcake tin. (For British people, this recipe makes what we would think of as muffin sized cakes, so use muffin cases and a muffin tin) Aim to fill the cakes two/thirds of the case, but you'll probably go over.
10. Put in the oven for approximately 25 minutes. They will go from not ready to ready very quickly, so be careful not to burn them.
11. Cool on a wire rack.
12. For the icing:.
13. Beat together the icing sugar and the butter. I use my hands for this, but a paddle mix would do just as well. The mix should look ever so slightly yellow in colour when you're done.
14. Add the cream cheese and stir in all the sugar/butter mix.
15. Beat until stiff.
16. This makes a very stiff icing and I pipe it onto the cupcakes, but if you use a warm spatula you should be able to get it moving enough to coat the cupcakes from that. The stiffer the icing is, the more like a little pint of Guinness your cupcake will look.

Reviews

[vanilla sugar]

Terrible, abject failure. I am really disappointed by this recipe. I have always liked Nigella and loved the simplicity of her recipes. Not this time. I am sure the fault is ALL mine, however..... they tasted like baking soda. I would love to see someone else succeed with this recipe because the idea of Guinness in a dessert is intriguing.