Baking Mondays - G is for Guinness

Chocolate Guinness cupcake filled with dark chocolate ganache, topped with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and sprinkled with green sugar crystals.

This week Mat was very excited about the prospect of Guinness cupcakes and it looks like quite a few of you were also excited about it - because Guinness won the polls with a landslide 21 out of 44 votes. I scoured the web for a Guinness cupcake recipe and all the recipes I found seemed to be pretty much the same. I figured if that many people were blogging about the same recipe that it had to be good, and I was right! I used the recipe on the Confessions of a Tart blog, with a few small changes.

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes (taken from Confessions of a Tart)
Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes (24 for me)

1 cup Guinness
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups plain flour
2 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons bicarb soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.
   
2. Bring Guinness and butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
3. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend.
   
4. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend.
   
5. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.
   
6. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined.
   
7. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way.
   
8. Bake for approximately 15 minutes
   

Dark Chocolate Ganache

226g dark chocolate, in small pieces
2/3 cup thickened cream

1. Place chocolate into a bowl.
2. Bring cream to boil in a small saucepan, remove from heat immediately and pour over chocolate.
3. Stir until chocolate melts.
4. Place ganache in fridge and stir every 10 minutes until you reach a good piping consistency.
   

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Follow the directions for Almond Swiss Meringue Buttercream, but use 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract and omit the almond essence.

Assembling the Cupcake

1. Let the cupcakes cool.
2. Cut out a well in each cupcake (eat the cut out piece :D).
3. Fill the well with dark chocolate ganache (pipe in the ganache).
4. Pipe a swirl of vanilla swiss meringue buttercream on top.
5. Sprinkle with green sugar crystals.
6. Marvel at the beauty of the cupcake.

The ratings?

Me - 9/10 - the cake was soooo good, moist, chocolatey, awesome! The ganache was a great surprise lurking inside the cake and the buttercream was great as always. Loved it. Guinness and chocolate = awesome!
Mat - 10/10 - beer to the rescue again! Best chocolate cake ever.

Nuff said!


Now before you go please take a moment to vote for the next cupcake in the A B Cupcakes project - we are up to letter H and these are your options...

Hi-Hat
Hot Chocolate
Honey