In Celebration of St. Patty's Day - Guinness Cupcakes

What goes better with St. Patricks Day then Guinness! Did you know that over 13 million pints of Guiness are sold on this favored Irish Holiday? I admit, it's delicious stuff, but I have to be in the mood for it. One things I am always in the mood for however, is cupcakes!

I wanted to make these Guinness Stout Cupcakes with Irish Cream Buttercream last year, but never got around to it. The fancy struck me yesterday so I headed to the grocery store and picked up a 4-pack of Guinness Draught cans (really, if you can't have it on draft, these are the way to go) and a bottle of Irish cream.

When I got home I couldn't find the recipe from last year, but a simple google search turned up this one and I wasn't disappointed!

Cupcakes

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup Guinness Stout

2/3 cup dutch process cocoa (I just used Hershey Cocoa)

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1/2 cup sour cream

Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar

4 tbsp irish cream liquor

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

In a saucepan, melt butter with cocoa, brown sugar and stout whisking regularly. Allow to cool to room temp.

In your mixer bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and beat on medium for approx. 1 minute. Add eggs and sour cream (I beat the eggs into the sour cream first, but you can add them seperately). Beat just until all flour mixture is incorporated. Scrape the bottoms and sides with a spatula to get it all mixed in. It should be smooth. **I added about a cup of bittersweet chocolate chips here and folded it into the batter...yum!

Divide into cupcake liners (about 1/3 cup each makes 24 standard cupcakes). Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

For Frosting: Beat butter until fluffy then add the sugar. Add the Irish Cream in 1 tbsp at a time on low. Once the sugar is all "wet" I beat it on high for 1-2 minutes just to soften it up a bit.

Personal Thoughts:

I'm used to the creaming method, mixing the dry ingredients together, creaming the wet ingredients (ie. butter, sugar, eggs) and slowing adding the dry to it, but this method is different and still produced a deliciously moist cake!

I recommend letting the cupcakes set out over night. They are really moist and fell apart (though I do like to try them when they are warm!) This morning they were perfect!

It's too bad I can't try these with the frosting! You see, I'm doing Weight Watchers and these are 10 points! (I did the recipe builder to figure it out). I did share one without frosting with my husband last night and my kiddo this morning and the chocolate is so good! You can't really taste the stout but it definitely adds dimension to the chocolate flavor! I did take a couple licks of the frosting too and its delicious! Only tastes slightly alcoholic from the liquor, but very, very slightly! I bet they are amazing together!

Hopefully I'll find out because I'm dropping off a dozen for the restaurant crew to snack on this afternoon!

If you make them....post a picture and share how they were!!

Happy St. Patty's to you all!