Sure, I probably could have asked friends for guidance on stout since I don't drink beer or any of its derivatives, but then my head would have been swimming with the intricacies of the types of stout and what they taste like. Fortunately, Trader Joe's made it easy and I went for the only stout that said, "buy me." The chocolate stout. Contrary to Wikipedia's definition of chocolate stout merely being named that way for the rich dark brown color of the brew, the Young's Double Chocolate Stout I used contains dark chocolate and chocolate malt.
The cupcakes taste fine although they do have a slight alcoholic twist. I have a lot of cream cheese sour cream frosting leftover. Maybe I'll use the other half of the bottle to make a chocolate stout cake, but I probably don't have enough stout if the recipe calls for more than a cup.
Ingredients/Directions:
(bowl #1) Whisk together:
1 cup chocolate stout
1 cup milk*
3/4 c. organic sour cream
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
3 eggs (add one at a time)
(bowl #2) Sift together:
2 1/2 c. unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 c. organic cane sugar
3/4 c. cocoa powder
(bowl #3) The frosting (blend until smooth):
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/4 c. sour cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Enough powdered sugar for sweetness
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. If you're going to use those paper cupcake liners, use two instead of one.
Recipe edits: The original recipe called for 2 cups sugar, but I dropped it by 1/2 a cup because the cocoa I used was Ghirardelli's sweet ground cocoa powder. I didn't have milk, so I used 1/2 cup heavy cream plus 1/2 cup soy milk. On the frosting, I didn't measure the powdered sugar. I may have used three handfuls. What can I say.. I was baking after slogging through a 12-hour workday. I just wanted to eat something sweet and chocolatey for dinner.
