Week 17: Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Remember my deep love for all things cupcake?! Does it surprise you to learn I've never made a batch from scratch before?

Up until now, all my cupcake-making adventures involved pre-mixed boxes. Despite it being Monday, last week I finally rolled up my sleeves and made my own cupcakes from scratch.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes, that is.

(Side note, aren't these silicone cupcake holders my mom got me for Easter adorable?!)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c unsweetened cocoa
• 2 c sugar
• 2 c all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch fine salt
• 1 bottle stout beer
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 c sour cream (I subbed plain Greek yogurt)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, 1 at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Lightly grease 24 muffin tins. Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.

And the recipe on the website for the frosting calls for powdered sugar. That I did not have on hand, but I had heavy cream. So I scoured the Internet and came up with this recipe for Whipped Cream Cream Cheese Frosting.

This was also the first time I've ever piped on frosting! Usually I'll just slather it on with a knife and make those messy peaks. But since buying piping bags in Sonoma last weekend, I figured this was as good as any time to start! Regardless, the messy look still shone through with my piped whipped cupcakes... Soooo, I really need to learn techniques. I tried to make flower petals instead of spiral frosting toppers, but they turned out heinous. Instead, I just swirled right on top haha. If you know of any websites/videos on how to pipe pretty designs, please send them my way :)

Now about the beer:

Yes there is an entire bottle of beer in my batter. Mixing it all together in my KitchenAid, you could DEFINITELY smell the stout. It reminded me of staying at a bar near closing and smelling the booze freshly spilled all over counters and floors ;) Ok, it was actually more of a pleasant aroma. And, interestingly enough, despite baking for 24 minutes, you can distinctly taste the beer in the cupcakes! It is interesting and very subtle, which I think makes for a delicious cupcake. Kind of reminds me of the time I dumped a whole lot of Bailey's into chocolate chip cookies....

Sensing a theme here? Seriously, try this. Or at least try alcoholic baked goods. It's kind of fun, in a childish-I-want-to-be-an-adult sort of way.

One final note. I found this recipe because I had all that stout on hand. Why?! Because I found alcoholic whipped cream at Total Wine and bought some when my sister was in town. My sister bought German Chocolate and I went with Amaretto. We honest-to-God tried whipped cream shots in our mouths, but this was too much. It literally tastes like taking shots. Stings the mouth, even.

I initially thought they'd be really good on top of a glass of stout. I've actually had whipped cream on top of a pumpkin beer before, in a restaurant, so this seemed similar. Upon contact with the beer, the alcoholic whipped cream curdled. Needless to say, I didn't finish it, at all. As unpleasant as that sounds, who knows, maybe it'll be decent on top of stout cupcakes...

Time for some reflection

I feel like I've been having more major freakouts in the past few days than I've ever had in my life. Living off "savings" without a job to replenish that is a harsh awakening at only 25 years old. I thought I'd still be adding to my savings right now, as my ultimate hope is to soon buy a new car, or rent for as short a time as possible!

I guess we can't always plan everything out perfectly, now can we?

Anyways, while I evaluate my life and the direction in which it's heading (seriously considering being a TA and applying for a master's in French Comparative Literature at ASU), I'm going for a little blog makeover.

Now I am living on a pretty tight budget. So my goal is to eat under a certain budget each day. I'm going to go all Rachel Ray on you and say $40 or less a day, but this is more of a dialogue. As I realize where my money's going on food each day, I'll maybe cutback or boost food allocations on a weekly basis. We'll see.

But first, how about those peanut butter brownies I promised you a few days back?!?!

I cheated a bit to start here by using a regular old box of brownie mix. I would have liked to make them from scratch, but that would require going out and buying chocolate and the box has been sitting in our pantry forever now.

My favorite part about baking is that I always get to channel my inner child and LICK THE SPOON!!! I don't care that it had raw eggs inside... I used to lick spoons all the time when I was a kid and I turned out just fine. Then again, maybe I should stop licking spoons....

...NAH!!!!

I knew I wanted to jazz the brownies up a little so I googled peanut butter frosting recipes and came up with this fluffy PB frosting recipe from allrecipes.com.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons milk, or as needed
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar

Place the butter and peanut butter into a medium bowl, and beat with an electric mixer. Gradually mix in the sugar, and when it starts to get thick, incorporate milk one tablespoon at a time until all of the sugar is mixed in and the frosting is thick and spreadable. Beat for at least 3 minutes for it to get good and fluffy.

I won a container of PB2 from Mary's blog before I moved and knew this was the best time to put it to the test! I think because it's just ground peanuts and doesn't contain any of the oils, it made for the perfect whipped topping! And it was super fun to mix.

The finished product (kind of looks like a meringue):

It really is one of the best brownies I've made! Notice how I said made and not had... I'm not that snobby :) And it made a ton, too. I didn't even use the entire mixture because look how fluffy it got. Let's just say, I'm happily eating a brownie (or two) a day, even after giving J.D. 1/3 to take to work and share.

And as for today's breakfast it consisted of a homemade tropical smoothie (Jamba Juice size, for half the price) and oatmeal.

Smoothie: 248 calories (if you drink all of it, I could only make it through 75%)

• 1 c watermelon (46 cal): the entire seedless watermelon cost me $1, so I'd say this was about $0.30 worth
• 1/4 mango (54 cal): one mango cost $1, so again $0.25
• 1/3 can chopped pineapple (36 cal): $1.50 for the whole can, so $0.50 spent there
• 3/4 scoop of Aria protein powder (32 cal): $9.99, one scoop is about 1/34 the can therefore $0.30
• 1 container of pomegranate light yogurt (80 cal): $0.50
• Total cost = $1.85

My oatmeal was the generic brand raspberries and creme which cost about $2 for the entire box. Therefore I spent $0.25 on the packet of oatmeal (130 cal). Then topped it with a small handful of chocolate hazelnut biscotti granola (75 cal). The entire box cost $3, so I doubt I even spent $0.25 for the handful.

There, that brings my breakfast tally to 453 calories (again, if all of the smoothie is consumed) and $2.35. Not a bad start to the morning! And guess what, my lunch is FREE because I didn't finish all of my dinner last night, so leftovers are in my future! Granted, I did have to budget out for dinner last night, so it really wasn't free, but as far as today's spending is concerned it is!