Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

​Well, I did it.  I finally jumped in and entered my very first cupcake war!  Luckily for me, I am blessed with a good friend who gave me the encouragement that I needed to submit my registration form.  

The Royal Cupcake Challenge was held at the Renaissance fair on Mother's Day.  The rules were simple: Bake 3 unique cupcake flavors and decorate each with a Renaissance theme.  (4 cupcakes of each flavor for a total of 1 dozen cupcakes.)  Easy enough - right?  I thought about it for a few days then finally decided on my three "unique" flavors to enter in the competition.

​A Dark Knight cupcake - a chocolate stout cupcake filled with a dark chocolate gananche filling and topped with a layer of chocolate ganache and a swirl of chocolate buttercream.  

​

A Pink Princess cupcake - a pink lemonade cupcake filled with a white chocolate mousse and topped with cream cheese frosting and a snickering sickerdoodle cupcake.  

​ A Snickerdoodle cupcake - a cinnamon sugar cupcake with a cookie crumble crust and toasted meringue buttercream.

​The pink lemonade and the snickerdoodle are cupcakes that I make fairly regularly.  The the chocolate stout cupcake was a new one for me so I gave it a trial run a few days before the competition.  I made a half recipe so my portions are going to look a little different than what is printed here. 

​Chocolate Stout Cupcakes 
2 eggs
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
6 ounces dark stout
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
6 Tablespoons butter, melted

Chocolate Ganache
3 ounces dark chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar 

Whisk together eggs and yogurt.  Add beer and vanilla.

​Sift together dry ingredients.

​Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until well blended.

​Whisk in melted butter.

​Scoop batter into liners.

​Combine ganache ingredients and microwave for 30 seconds until melted.  Chill in refrigerator to thicken slightly.

​Spoon a dollop of ganache in the center of each unbaked cupcake.

​Bake 20 minutes at 350.

​Cool on wire racks.

​I could hardly wait until the cupcakes cooled to taste one.
I cut one in half to check the ganache and it was still intact (By that I mean that it didn't ooze into the cupcake during the baking process.) but it did sink to the bottom.  Minor mishap. 

​I sampled this cupcake - the entire thing!  I could taste the chocolate stout but it wasn't overpowering.  It was delicious and not overly sweet.   I decided that it would be even better if I added more chocolate ganache to the top of the cooled cupcakes.

​Since these were sample cupcakes, I frosted a few for sampling.  I used a white chocolate frosting and chocolate jimmies for these yummy treats.

​Now to turn the rest of these cupcakes into dark knights.  I printed out a cupcake wrapper patterns from the internet to use as a template for my wrappers.  I cut some slits in the top of mine to resemble a castle.  I used hot glue to secure the wrappers.  

​I made shields and swords using black candy melts and silver dragees.

For those of you who are anxiously awaiting the results of the Renaissance Fair Cupcake War - I did not win.  It was a lot of fun to participate and even though it was stressful, I would definitely do it again.  These are the pictures from our day at the Renaissance festival.  

​Yes, that is my husband with his face in a chocolate pie.  He didn't win the pie eating contest either, but - he had pie!  

Ciao!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe