This weekend, if you want to know, I had an amazing Colorado weekend. I ran Red Rocks with a friend in the morning on Saturday, took a nap then drove to Boulder to meet with another friend for another trail run. I earned my Prickle Pear margarita! Sunday afternoon, I went hiking off the 285 in Bailey, Colorado for a few hours. I earned my beer this weekend!
Sometimes, beer comes in the form of chocolate cupcakes.
I came across a great pairing: Stout chocolate cupcakes and Vanilla Porter frosting. In a conversation with some Michigan family friends, I shared my new passion for food blogging and my aspirations. They, of course, are friends with the bar manager at the Breck Brewery in Breckenridge. And, Easter was coming up. The Ralstons invited me to join in the Easter celebration and so I offered to whip up some Easter cupcakes. I think we all enjoyed these cupcakes after a hard day of playing in Breckenridge! These cupcakes are a celebration of great Colorado beer and living the good life in the Colorado Rockies.
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| Chocolate-Stout mixture: I added more Stout to account for being so high in the sky! |
My friend Katherine, who is a phenomenal Spanish tutor in the kitchen, was helping me out. It would NOT have been possible without her help!
We started by making the liquids: stout-chocolate mixture. First, mix the butter and sour cream together in a large bowl (this will eventually house the completed batter). This makes for some dense, doughy cupcakes. Yum.
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| Kitchen-Aids are amazing. So easy! |
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| Chocolate, butter, and beer. Stick a spoon in there and taste! Mix the dry into the liquid using a mixer. It's okay to take your time and stop the mixer. Actually, stop the mixer, mix in half the flour at slow speed. Stop, top it off. |
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| Add chocolate chips to the batter for extra chocolate taste! |
I learned a new baking trick: use an ice cream scoop for even amounts of cake batter. If you have uneven amounts of batter in your cupcake foils, the baking is uneven. Duh, Jaclyn.
While these bake, you can work on the frosting. Or, take a walk outside and do some lunges. You are about to consume a few too many calories. But, act NOW. Do a quick circuit: 25 push-ups, 50 crunches, 25 lunges. Repeat 2-3 times in 15 minutes while these bake and you are golden.
Definitely take a walk outside just to open the door and walk back into the kitchen. It smells like you live in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. If it doesn't, you did something wrong.
Now, for the frosting. I made some major mistakes. I LOVED this whole beer-frosting idea that I ignored the 2 tablespoons part of the recipe and just splashed lots of beer and butter together. No bueno. The correct frosting directions are given below...
Epic failure: runny sugary, buttery beer flavored liquid. Failure? NOT. chunky frosting is the beer-liquid frosting that my friends loved! But, it is a little weird looking. Until you taste it.
Making the frosting starts with boiling the vanilla porter down to 1/2 of what you started with. You will NOT use all the porter in the frosting mixture~!
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| It smells a little off, and simmering porter is not edible. |
The porter is used like vanilla extract - a little bit goes a long way.
Beat the porter and the butter together until it is fluffy looking.
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| this is actually TOO much porter - this is the failed attempt. Add the powdered sugar in batches. |
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| creamy frosting is spreadable. want more creaminess? stick the frosting in the freezer for a few minutes |
I am not meticulous and lack a certain baker's quality: the ability to make frosting look pretty. How the hell do people have the patience to make frosting look perfect? I couldn't wait to unravel the paper and take a bite.
The smell of these chocolate-stout cupcakes baking is out of this world. It smells like a chocolate factory. If you make it until the end of frosting these to eat one, I commend you!
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| Your frosting should just be the thicker, creamy frosting! Unless, you like very beer-y frosting. |
The recipe I found was for a LARGE quantity of cakes & cupcakes so I halved everything - and it worked!
Ingredients:
1 cup stout (milk stout); add a few more splashes at high altitude
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar; 1/3 c less @ high altitude
a few pinches of baking soda; less at a higher altitude
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 c sour cream
1/2 c chocolate chips (or more, if you want really chocolate-y cupcakes)
I made these at the ski condo, and Silverthorne sits at an altitude of more than 7,000 feet above sea level. Adjustments were made, sometimes made up. It worked.
Frosting:
1/2 c vanilla porter
1/2 c butter @ room temperature
1 c powdered sugar
Let's Bake!
1) Preheat oven to 350; high altitude above 7500 feet means 375
2) Prepare your cake pan or cupcake foils & spay 'em with nonstick
3) Bring the stout and cup of butter to a simmer in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk just until smooth. Cool.
4) Sift together: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt in a large bowl and set aside.
5) Beat eggs in an electric mixer (if you're lucky, or just do it the old-fashioned way) with the sour cream in their own big bowl. HIGH ALTITUDE: DO NOT over-beat the eggs! Add stout/chocolate liquid to the egg mixture and beat until just combined. Stop. Add flour mixture and beat on slow speed until just combined. Add chocolate chips, if you wish.
6) Divide the batter into the cupcake foils and bake between 12 - 18 minutes. Altitude and ovens vary across the country.
7) Let them cool completely before frosting.
Frosting:
1) Boil vanilla porter to reduce to 1/2 of what you've got
2) Beat only 2 tablespoons of the porter with the butter until fluffy. Add the powdered sugar in 2-3 even intervals and beat with a mixer until you've got a creamy consistency. Add more sugar if you need to, it never hurts to add more sugar. Taste, if you want more porter flavor, add some more butter and whip.
3) Frost and serve!
