IronCupcake_008: "Beer & Peanuts" Cupcakes

Iron Cupcake:Earth_008
Theme: Nuts & Seeds
My 2nd entry: Beer & Peanuts Cupcakes
Voting begins: Sunday, March 29 at 8 pm Central @ http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/ and will be open through Friday, April 3 at 12 noon Central.


Wow, is this last minute or what!? The deadline is 12 central, which is 1pm eastern... Let's see if I click "Publish Post" before time runs out! The inspiration for these cupcakes came from a recipe in Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman. I didn't use her recipe, but ever since I saw "Beer and Peanuts Cupcakes" in her book, I've wanted to make my own variation of the idea. My cupcakes are chocolate beer cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake. I'm not sure exactly how it's written in her book, because when I googled the recipe it was a little different on every blog I looked at. This is the one I found on the Borders bookstore website. It's supposedly an exerpt from the book, so I bet it's right. I halved the recipe and got 14 cupcakes. For the frosting, I made up a recipe off the cuff, but I wish I'd gone back and used the recipe from Bake & Destroy that I love so much. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with these cupcakes. They are extremely moist (verging on gummy because of all the liquid in the recipe). They aren't incredibly chocolatey, but that's okay because I wasn't focusing on the chocolate anyway. I wish the beer flavor was a little more prominent. I blame myself for that, though. We didn't have any Guinness on hand so I used the darkest beer we had, wish was an Irish Red. Not dark enough for this recipe I guess. Here they are, my second Iron Cupcake entry for this month!

Chocolate Beer Cupcakes (adapted from Nigella Lawson's "Chocolate Guinness Cake")
(I halved this and got 14 cupcakes)

1 cup Guinness (or any dark beer)
¾ cup sour cream
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups superfine sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350°F, and butter and line a 9 inch springform pan (or put 14 paper liners in a muffin pan). Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and baking soda.

Pour the cake batter into the lined pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (14-16 minutes for cupcakes). Leave to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

Peanut Butter Frosting (my own recipe)

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Blend butter and peanut butter until smooth. Sift in confectioners' sugar and beat on low speed. Add milk and increase speed to high. Beat for 1 minute.


Overall rating on a scale of 1-5
Moistness: 5
Tenderness: 5
Frosting: 3

Prizes provided by Etsy artists:
A Bunnycake Easter Plushie by DOGBONEART
A whimsical piece by CAKEASAURUS
A pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES
Also, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice!
SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a collection of all new printed cupcake liners, 200 in all.
Corporate prize providers:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
CUPCAKE COURIER
TASTE OF HOME books
UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers