St. Patrick’s Day inspired cupcakes

I couldn’t help myself. I jumped on the bandwagon and baked something with chocolate and stout! Luscious cakes. Gotta live a little, right? 😀 In recent years, there has been an explosion of chocolate and stout desserts especially for St. Patrick’s Day and last year I made chocolate stout cupcakes from Nook & Pantry. Those were really good. This year, I baked another chocolate stout cupcake, but with different ingredients based on the butternut squash, carrot, and hazelnut muffins I recently made. Using that recipe and a recipe from Cannelle et Vanille as motivation, I came up with St. Patrick’s Day inspired stout and chocolate cupcakes with Carolans cream cheese frosting. These cupcakes can be gluten-free if you use gluten-free dark beer.

(Photo credit: wikipedia.org)

Guinness stout paired with chocolate, a classic combo?

(Photo credit: pastemagazine.com)

There are also gluten-free dark beers out there and the reviews on Green’s Endeavor Dubbel dark ale consistently pin this as a good to decent beer if you are into drinking beer. Have you heard of this? This seems like a good substitution for the Guinness. I hear that they have it at Bev Mo. You can also find other gluten-free beers at health foods stores that have gluten-free ingredients and products.

The process of making the batter is similar to my carrot-hazelnut muffins. Check that post for some tips. Before mixing the dry ingredients, grind the hazelnut meal with the brown rice flour to get a finer grain flour, which will result in a moist baked good free from having a gritty texture. From there it is simply just mix dry ingredients together with the combined wet ingredients (including mashed potato!). Then scoop the batter in paper-lined cupcake tins and bake in a preheated oven. Make sure not to over-bake or the cakes will be dry as you want somewhat of a fudge-y interior. If you do the toothpick test, it will still have a bit of crumbs. That’s okay. You can eat these cakes as they are, or dress them up to party with some chocolate-stout fudge sauce and frosting. I did the latter…:)

For party time cupcakes, start by poking some holes on the cakes while they are cooling or after they have cooled.

Then drizzle on some chocolate-stout fudge sauce in each hole. Fill each hole up with the fudge sauce until it is completely filled.

Spread the sauce to make it even.

The frosting is a simple cream cheese frosting flavored with Carolans Irish cream, which is certified gluten-free. I used a gallon-sized plastic bag with a corner cut off as my piping bag to frost the cupcakes. I don’t do much cake decorating so forgive my piping skills. I’m a beginner at it. At least, I’ve got the rustic look down 😀

A cupcake inspired by St. Patrick’s Day. Time to celebrate!

Stout and Chocolate Cupcakes with Carolans Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes 9 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cake

(adapted from Canelle et Vanille)

• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup hazelnut flour
• 1/4 cup quinoa flour
• 2 tablespoons dry buttermilk powder
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Ghirardeli’s brand)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (or 1/4 cup cacao nibs)
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (75 g) coconut palm sugar (or use sucanat or light brown sugar)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (or 1 vanilla bean)
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons gluten-free dark beer (or Irish stout if you can have gluten)
• 1/4 cup mashed potatoes

Chocolate Stout Fudge Sauce

(adapted from The Beeroness)

• 4 tablespoons unsalted Irish butter (or regular unsalted butter)
• ½ cup gluten-free dark beer (or stout if you are okay with gluten)
• 2 tablespoons honey (or other liquid sweetener like brown rice syrup or agave)
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or good quality chocolate, chopped

Carolan’s Cream Cheese Frosting

(adapted from Nook & Pantry)

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
• 4 tablespoons Carolan’s Irish Cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.
2. Dry ingredients:  In a large bowl, whisk together the brown rice flour, hazelnut flour, quinoa flour, cocoa powder, dry buttermilk powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and mini chocolate chips.
3. Wet ingredients:  In another bowl, whisk eggs for 3-4 minutes until light and fluffy. Then whisk in the brown sugar, coconut oil, vanilla, dark beer, and mashed potato. Whisk the mixture for 3-4 minutes. Make sure there are no lumps of potato.
4. While whisking the wet ingredients, slowly add half of the dry ingredients. Mix until well combined. Add the remaining flour mixture and stir until blended together.
5. Spoon the batter into the paper-lined muffin tins, filling about 3/4 full. Bake for about 18-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted leaves just a few crumbs. Make sure not to over-bake. Cool on a wire rack.
6. While the cupcakes are cooling you can make the stout fudge sauce. In a sauce pan, heat the butter, beer, honey, and a pinch of salt on medium high heat. Mix well. Let the mixture come to a boil and then turn off the heat. Stir in the chocolate until it is completely melted and is combined. Set aside until ready to assemble the cupcakes. If the sauce hardens, microwave it in 20 second intervals until it is back to a syrupy consistency.
7. Assembly:  Using a chopstick, poke 8-9 holes on each cupcake, pushing down throughout the length of the cake, but make sure not to make a hole into the cupcake liner. Spoon the fudge sauce into each hole until it is filled. Smooth the top of the cupcake with a spatula to make an even layer of fudge sauce on the surface. Let the filled cupcakes rest for 30 minutes to an hour in the refrigerator.
8. While the cupcakes are resting, make the cream cheese frosting. To make the frosting, using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar, adding a little at a time until it is all combined. Mix in the pinch of salt. Add the Irish cream and beat until it is incorporated. Use a pastry bag or gallon-size plastic bag to pipe the frosting onto each cupcake. Drizzle more of the fudge sauce on top if desired, and enjoy!

The interior. These cupcakes are intense and dense. If you love chocolate, this will definitely satisfy a chocolate craving. But they don’t make you feel sick like many cupcakes can (especially the store bought ones). Gluten-free baked goods don’t give me that sick feeling. I also tone down the amount of sweetness so that may help too. That is something good especially when you want to party or celebrate with some cupcakes. 🙂

The texture was somewhere between muffin and cake, which worked well with the fudge sauce. Maybe it was the mashed potatoes that added more body to the cake. Also, they taste even better even a couple days later. The flavors meld nicely as time goes by. My sister said that she could taste the stout but it was not overpowering. There was a toasty malt tone to the cakes.

These were fun and finger-lickin’ good cupcakes! The gardeners were happy to have some too after some hard work outside in the hot weather.

How are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? I’m visiting my family and my dad will be making corned beef and cabbage tomorrow. Yay! We look forward to this every year!

Related articles

• St. Patrick’s Day: Cobblestone Chocolate Stout Pudding (klwatts.typepad.com)
• 5 Necessary St. Patrick’s Day Recipes (sunsetdaily.wordpress.com)
• Host a St. Patrick’s Day Party For Those With a Sweet Tooth (berries.com)
• The Luck ‘O The Irish! (oondrea.wordpress.com)