12 days of Christmas: Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

The computer I am using to type this blog entry is pretty old.
                         In fact, when I got it, I looked like this:

I got my computer back in my Wahoowa days.  It was the fall of 2002, and I was in my first year at college, living in possibly the most amazingly decorated dorm room ever, with my awesome roomie Nitty.  I have no idea what paper I was writing at the time of the photo...it couldn't have been my History of the Middle East final, because I didn't even come up with a topic for that one until midnight, the day before it was due.  My first all-nighter made me feel like such a grown up, and so miserable, all at the same time.

So, why am I getting nostalgic about my time as an exhausted paper-writing undergrad?  Because my computer is about to breathe its last breath.  Thanks to an amazing entourage that has solved all my computer problems for nearly a decade, my computer still runs.  But not very well.  And once agsin, I have enlisted the assistance of a friend to switch from the dark ages, one-working-USB port-in-the-very-back computer to a brand new one!  I bribed hm with cupcakes.  Not just any cupcakes, but chocolate stout (Guinness) cupcakes.

The cupcake recipe I followed is from Baked Perfection (under Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.)

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

1 cup Guinness

1 cup butter

3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Diections:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with liners. Bring Guinness and the butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat.  Then, add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Allow to slightly cool.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a  medium bowl.  In another bowl, combine eggs and sugar, and beat with an electric mixer.  Add the beer/butter.cocoa mixture to the creamed egg/sugar.  Then, add the dry ingredients, a little at a time, stopping to scrape down the bowl.
Scoop about 1/3 cup batter in each liner.  Bake 18-20 minutes. This batter is runny, so use a stick to test.  When it comes clean, the cupcakes are done.

I *had* a fabulous idea for a Guiness-reduction buttercream.  But I think I reduced it too much.  I read that if you add a tablespoon of sugar to about a bottle of Guiness, and simmer it until it reduces to about a tablespoon of liquid, you add this to frosting for beer flavor.  I would have reduced it to more liquid, because you could not really taste the Guinness in the frosting.  And the frosting was not fabulous anyway, so I used it as glue for the little Root Beer barrels. My plan B? I dipped the cupcakes in dark chocolate ganache.

Chocolate Ganache:
I heated about a cup of heavy cream in a pot on the stove.  When it was hot, but not boiling, I added broken up Ghiradelli 60% Cocoa bar, and stirred until melted.  Dark chocolate ganache=heaven!

To garnish, I added Root Beer Barrel candies benetah a ball of frosting and some chopped nuts. Yummy!