Baking with beer?! It's almost as subversive as the zucchini cake. Alcohol isn't an uncommon ingredient in baking, but it's usually not beer. This recipe calls for a stout and since my beer knowledge is limited, I took their recommendation and went with a bottle of Guinness. How was it? Try it and see!

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes
From Food Network

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch fine salt
• 1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness)
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°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.

About this recipe: The only really odd part about this is that it says to mix the dry into the wet. I totally ignored this and added wet to dry to avoid getting what would have been a multitude of lumps. I can't imagine how it works doing it the other way, but try it if you must and let me know how it works.

Also, I kind of worried while stirring in the butter, vanilla, eggs, and sour cream into the beer that it was becoming very flat. You really do stir out most of the carbonation, but I don't think there's really a way around this.

I had to mix regular Hershey's cocoa with their special dark cocoa, about 1/2 and 1/2, since I ran out of the former.

I didn't read the baking instructions carefully but oddly enough, did what they said without realizing that's what you were supposed to do. I didn't bake them for quite as long as they say.

The result: a very moist and rich chocolate cake. As you eat the first bite, all you taste is the chocolate but when it starts to melt away in your mouth, you actually do get a little bitter beer taste which isn't unpleasant. It could easily be overwhelming, but it's not. The cupcake tops rose slightly for a nice finish. A great addition to your chocolate cake collection that's perfect to serve on poker night or at a barbecuee.