Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

One of my co-workers asked if I could make some cupcakes for a wedding shower she was throwing. Of course I said yes. The shower had a wine and cheese theme and we decided to play off that and chose chocolate stout cupcakes. 

I've had this recipe on hand for along time. When I was getting ready for Cupcake Camp last year these made the short list but I just never got around to trying them out. Not even for St. Patrick's Day. Go figure! I had printed off a number of recipes that were pretty similar. I think they were all variations of one another but in the end, I decided to try out Dave Lieberman's recipe. 

The recipe was very straightforward except for one missing piece of information. He specifies "one bottle of beer" but how much is a bottle? I had come across another version of the recipe that said to use one cup, so that's what I used. It seemed to work. Also, I used an espresso beer. Chocolate recipes often call for espresso to bring out the flavor of the chocolate, and stout kind of tastes like coffee, so I thought it would be a good match. 

I didn't use the frosting suggested in Dave's recipe. I've always found that frosting with milk or cream in it ends up being too soft. I knew I wanted to pipe the frosting on these so I used good old Martha's cream cheese butter cream instead. I also jazzed it up a little with some vanilla bean and dusted them with cocoa powder to finish them off.  

 

Packed up and ready for delivery

 

  
I got a lot of compliments on the frosting for these. It was nice and fluffy and not too rich like cream cheese frosting can sometimes be. My best guess is that the richness of the cream cheese is cut by the butter. That's right. I said I think the butter make it seem less rich. 

I thought the texture of these cupcakes was perfect. I also loved to combination of the cream cheese with the chocolatey, sort of bitter cake. I found the aftertaste of the stout to be a little strong, but some of my tasters told me I was crazy. Maybe I was just expecting it to be there and I was paying more attention to it than the others. This recipe is certainly a keeper. It was super easy and made two dozen generous cupcakes. 


What's your favorite recipe with booze?