Guinness!!

My husband's birthday was last month and even though he'd rather have pumpkin pie for his birthday, I like to make a cake or cupcakes for him to take into work. I guess it's sort of like sending cupcakes to school with a kid.  Haha!  :)

A couple years ago, I made this Chocolate Stout Cake for St. Patrick's Day and I though it would be fun to make it into cupcakes this year for his birthday. For some reason guys really seem to like things that have beer in them, are cooked in beer, taste like beer, look like beer, etc. so I was hoping these cupcakes would at least be a hit with the guys in the office.

The day I went shopping for cupcake liners, there were no plain or non-Halloweenish ones to be found so I used some nut cups I had sitting around. If you're planning to use nut cups for making cupcakes, make sure they are not lined with wax.  The wax lined ones are not suitable for baking.  Another option are paper souffle cups. One nice thing about using these is that you can just line them up on a baking sheet and put them in the oven; it enables you to bake more cupcakes at once.

It can be difficult to get the paper off to eat the cupcake, so I cut a small slit in each cup before filling. If you look closely at the pitcure below, you can see the small cut.

Since this was only the second time I had baked in these cups, I was worried they would bake up too high and spill over. I filled them about halfway and they baked up just right. I like my cupcakes to bake up with a flat top, it makes for easier decoration.

This recipe makes a huge amount of batter since it is for a 3 layer cake. I baked 22 regular cupcakes (I know it's a strange number, but there were only 22 cups in my 24 pack...), 24 mini cupcakes, 6 little pumpkin shaped cakes and an 8-inch cake. Thank goodness this cake is good, we ate it for about a week!  :)

Since I was only sending the cupcakes and mini cupcakes into the office, I concentrated my decoration efforts on those and used two frosting techniques. When the ganache was still warm, I dipped the tops of the mini cupcakes in and then stuck a large pumpkin sprinkle on top.

For the regular size cupcakes, I went with the traditional swirl and then topped them with sprinkles.  I found sprinkles that just happened to be in the colors of my husband's alma mater. Go Dawgs!!! 

By the way, they were a huge hit, not only at the office but also with all the friends we were able to share with!