This is by far the best chocolate cake I’ve ever made/tasted.

Who knew that a can of Guinness Beer could produce the richest and most decadent chocolate cake?!

I made these in lieu of St. Patricks day/my brother-in-law’s going away party.

You see, my brother in law, Timmy has been living with Mikey and me for the past 2 months while he goes to beer-brewing school.

Yup, that’s a thing.

He is in school to become a brewmaster or master brewer of beer or something like that.

He does (did) 2 months here in Chicago at a school called Siebel, and on Saturday leaves for Germany where he’ll be for the remaining 4 months of the program.

Not bad, eh?

So…we had a going away party for him and paired all of the food with beer, obviously.

Being a baker I decided I had to make a beer inspired dessert…which is where these little babies were born.

There are a million different Guinness cupcake recipes floating around the internet but most of them have Baileys frosting and fillings and I just wasn’t feeling it.

Instead, I decided to try these with my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe.

But that was still too boring, so I decided to top them with a little whiskey caramel sauce as well. Boom.

This recipe is in the top 5 of best things I’ve ever posted on this blog.

They are that good.

The Guinness is this magical ingredient that makes these cupcakes so delicious. The stout/coffee flavor of the beer cuts the rich cocoa and makes a perfect harmony of flavor.

The cake itself isn’t super sweet, but that’s exactly what you want when your are piling on cream cheese frosting and whiskey caramel sauce.

(I doubled the recipe listed below, so don’t get confused by the pictures. They won’t match up with the list of ingredients so be careful not to use too much of something!)

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If you don’t know this, you need to let your cupcakes/cake cool completely before frosting, especially when you’re using a buttercream or cream cheese (which in my case is every time) because the butter/cream cheese will melt if you put it on a warm cake.

Look how fluffy and beautiful that frosting is!

If this seems familiar, it’s because I have made it before! Here is the link to the other time I made Whiskey Caramel Sauce.

I wish I could have posted these before St. Patricks day…but I didn’t.

So either put this away in your folder for next year…Or just make them because they are the best cupcake you will ever have!

And you don’t have to make the caramel sauce! They are amazing with just the frosting too.

You’re drooling…

Recipe: Guinness Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and Whiskey Caramel Sauce

Recipe: Chocolate Guinness Cupcake

1/2 Cup Guinness

1 Stick Butter

3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder

1 Cup Flour

3/4 Cups Sugar

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1 Egg

1/3 Cup Sour Cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter and brown sugar in a medium saucepan. Add guinness and let it just simmer. Add cocoa and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

In the bowl of a mixer beat together egg and sour cream.

In a separate bowl combine flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

Slowly add cocoa mixture to sour cream and egg mixture, pouring in a steady stream and beating until just combined.

Add flour mixture to cocoa mixture and beat briefly.

Line cupcake tins with liners and fill 3/4 full with batter.

Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Recipe: Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 Stick butter, softened

1 80z brick cream cheese, softened

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2-4 Tablespoons Milk

4-6 Cups Powdered Sugar

Directions:

Cream butter and cream cheese in a mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and a cup of powdered sugar and beat together. Slowly add milk and powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency and volume.

Recipe: Whiskey Caramel Sauce

1/3 Cup Whiskey

1 1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 1/3 Cups Sugar

1/2 Cup Water

1 Teaspoon Corn Syrup

1 3/4 Cups Heavy Cream

6 Tablespoons Butter

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Directions:

In a small saute pan, pour in the whiskey over medium high heat. Using a kitchen torch or lighter, tilt pan and carefully light the whiskey on fire and flambe the alcohol. When you flambe, you’re ecentially burning out all the alcohol and just leaving behind the flavor of the whiskey. You can blow out the flame at any time if you want a stronger alcohol flavor.

Once flame burns out, pour in vanilla extract and set aside.

In a large sauce pan combine sugar, water and corn syrup, stirring until the sugar has the consistency of wet sand. Plave the saucepan over high heat and cook until the sugar dissolves and begins to boil. Do not stir the sugar, this may couse the process to “seize”.

While the sugar is cooking, combine the cream, butter and salt in a saucepan over medium heat. Keep a close eye on the sugar so it does not scorch! Cook butter mixture just until the butter is melted and has come to a slight simmer, then remove from the heat.

Continue cooking the sugar until it darkens to a rich caramel color, 7 to 10 minutes. The sugar darkens quickly and will smell faintly nutty. Swirl the pan as the sugar begins to darken to see the true color of the caramel. Watch carefully as th sugar can easily overcook and scorch.

As soon as the color is a rich caramel color, immediately remove from the heat and the cream mixture in a slow, steady stream. The sugar will bubble and steam as the cream is added, be careful as both the mixture and steam are very hot. Carefully stir in the whiskey and vanilla.

Stir the caramel until it stops bubbling, then remove to a heat proof container until needed. makes a large batch of caramel, way more than you need for the cupcakes. You can keep for about 2 weeks and is a great ice cream topping! Or freeze for up to 6 months.

Assembly:

Once cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with room temperature frosting. Drizzle caramel sauce over frosting and refrigerate until 1 hour before serving. You want the cake and frosting to be at room temperature when you eat them!