Do you think my cupcake idea will work?!


Question: I want to make St. Patrick's Day cupcakes for my friends, but since I'm short on cash it's no time to experiment on my own. I'm gonna go safe with a box mix. I was thinking of buying a box mix for chocolate cake and replacing the water with Guinness. Do you think my cakes will turn out, or is there a better way to add liquor to the mix? Also, what kind of frosting do you think will be best with the chocolate/beer cupcakes?


Answers: I want to make St. Patrick's Day cupcakes for my friends, but since I'm short on cash it's no time to experiment on my own. I'm gonna go safe with a box mix. I was thinking of buying a box mix for chocolate cake and replacing the water with Guinness. Do you think my cakes will turn out, or is there a better way to add liquor to the mix? Also, what kind of frosting do you think will be best with the chocolate/beer cupcakes?

I don't think adding Guinness to cake mix is the best method to go about this, either. I baked Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake yesterday, and it was easy, moist, and delicious. Perhaps you might reconsider making one from scratch? It was not much more work than a mix, and was enjoyed by the person I made it for.

--I changed 2 things: Instead of the 3/4 cup sour cream in the cake batter, I used 3/4 cup of milk with 1 tsp of vinegar mixed in because I didn't have any sour cream on hand.
--I only used 1.5 cups of sugar in the cake batter rather than 2 cups called for, as I don't care for things to be too sweet. But it should be fine either way, just preference.

Nigella's recipe used cream cheese frosting which was what I used. Or alternatively, you could also use a chocolate ganache (below) if you don't care for cream cheese.

**Also, don't forget to decrease your baking time. The time in the recipe is for a single cake, not cupcakes.**

Chocolate Guinness Cake
From "Feast" by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients
Cake
1 cup Guinness stout
10 Tablespoons Butter, sliced (1 stick, plus 2 TBS)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups granulated white sugar
3/4 cup sour cream OR milk
2 large eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Icing
8 ounce cream cheese
1 cup confectioners' sugar (add more if needed)
1/2 cup heavy cream

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

Pour Guinness into a large saucepan, add butter and heat until melted. Whisk in cocoa powder and sugar. In a small bowl, beat sour cream with eggs and vanilla and then pour into brown, buttery, beery mixture and finally whisk in flour and baking soda.

Pour cake batter into greased and line pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (Check at 45 minutes for doneness, poking a skewer in center.). Leave to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

When cake is cold, gently peel off parchment paper and transfer to a platter or cake stand.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Place cream cheese and confectioners' sugar in a mixing bowl, and whip with an electric beater, until smooth (You may also do this with a food processor.) Add cream and beat again until you have a spreadable consistency. Ice top of cake, starting at middle and fanning out, so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

OR...

Ganache
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules

For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

Yields about 12 slices.

Click on the links if you'd like to see photos of the cake. (Not my photos.) I used the recipe from the first link, and copy-pasted it here as well.

I made cupcakes and replace the water with caramel syrup, the cupcakes did not rise and they were soggy. maybe only replace half the water with guinness

No, probably won't work. Do the frosting in green with shamrocks and leave the Guinness on the side. Tell everyone to bring their own drink!

putting it in the cupcakes probably wouldn't work. but putting it in the icing would be great! you would probably have to make the icing ur self but it's not hard to find a good icing recipe

You could just do a regular chocolate cupcake but do the frosting with Guinness so you can still have the beer in them. And definitely go with green frosting and possibly green sprinkles....

Cake

1 cup Guinness
1 stick, plus 1 tb, unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tb vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
Glaze

8 oz cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350; butter a muffin tin.

Combine the Guinness and the butter, chopped into 1-inch chunks, in a large sauce pan, and heat to melt the butter. Remove from heat, and whisk in the cocoa and sugar. In a bowl, whisk the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, then add to the beer mixture. Sift together the flour and baking soda, and fold into the batter. Pour into muffin molds and bake for 25 minutes, or until inserted cake tester comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes, remove from muffin tin, and cool completely on a rack.

Using a mixer, whip cream cheese until smooth, sift in sugar, and beat. Add milk, and beat until smooth. Spread glaze over cooled cupcakes.

I wouldn't put beer in a cake mix. Why don't you just flavour your icing with a bit of booze instead. Buy a tub of chocolate icing.

I don't think the guiness will work in the cake mix. You could try making the icing w/ Bailey's Irish Cream. That would be great with the chocolate cupcake.





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