LITTLE GUINNESS CUPCAKES

A while ago I spotted an idea on a lovely blog called “I HEART CUPCAKES”.

The writer had made a chocolate Guinness cake using Nigella Lawson’s recipe and decided to use some of the mixture to make cupcakes.

What a great idea! I have made Nigella’s cake many times with great success and it is always well admired.  So, armed with my brand new Kenwood Chef, I was itching to have a go at cupcakes.

The daft thing is, you don’t need a food mixer at all to do the Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe. You melt the butter in a large saucepan with the Guinness and then add all the remaining ingredients to the pan – it’s so easy.

But I was determined to use my new toy, so I melted the butter in a small saucepan and then transferred everything to the bowl of my Kenwood Chef to do the rest of the mixing.

The results were excellent. Nigella’s recipe is quite expensive to make but it produced 24 cupcakes with some mixture left over, so it probably would have made 30 cupcakes.

The quantity of topping would probably have to be increased to give all the cakes a good dollop of icing. (I only iced 24 of the cakes and baked the remaining mixture as a small plain cake.)

Here is my version of the recipe for LITTLE GUINNESS CUPCAKES

Ingredients

For the cake

250ml Guinness (save the bottle cap for decoration if you like)

250g unsalted butter, cut into cubes

400g caster sugar

75g cocoa powder

1 x 142 ml pot soured cream

2 eggs

1 tablespoon real vanilla extract

275g plain flour

2½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

For the topping

300g Philadelphia cream cheese

150g icing sugar

125ml double cream

Method

Preheat oven to 180ºC.

Put 30 cake cases into muffin tins.

Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan. Add the butter and heat gently until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat.

Add the cocoa powder and sugar to the pan and whisk in.

In a separate bowl, beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla essence. Add to the saucepan and mix in.

Whisk in the flour and bicarb. Mix well then pour the mixture evenly into the cake cases.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cakes are cooked, using normal methods to test for whether they are done. Remember that the cakes turn out a very dark colour.

Cool in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

To make the topping, put the icing sugar in a food processor and whiz briefly to remove any lumps.

Beat in the cheese until smooth. Then beat in the double cream until thick. (You may like to add a little more sifted icing sugar to get the consistency you like for piping on the cakes.)

Makes approx 30 cupcakes.